


Hold on Love, We're Still Fighting

by Selkiessong



Series: Where the Red Poppies Bloom [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: After About Thirty Chapters, Age Swap-Tommen and Myrcella, Angst and Feels, As in the Main Pairing Don't Meet for Two Chapters, Bittersweet, Canon Disabled Character, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Smut, F/M, My First Fanfic, No Twincest, Past Sexual Harassment, Petyr Baelish is his own warning, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-World War I, Slow Build, Slow Burn, World War I, and Take Another Nine to Touch Each Other, but I Promise to Get There
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2018-12-29 18:37:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 42,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12090999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selkiessong/pseuds/Selkiessong
Summary: An scandal not of her making caused Lady Sansa Stark to take up nursing and led her to blood soaked fields of France.  Captain Jamie Lannister answered his county's call to arms and returns having lost years of his life and his right hand. He is her future and she is his.Title from the lyrics of Josh Groban’s “War at Home”First fic, hoping for positive feedback.





	1. I Arya

   “There are worse things,” Arya tells herself firmly as she eyes Sansa. Her sister is sitting two seats to her right, and Arya can clearly see her perfect posture, her calm attentive expression, her every movement of hands and cutlery a graceful dance. While this would have infuriated her before, “Perfect ladylike Sansa always showing off”, Arya knew her older sister now. Sansa selected her dresses and jewels with the same a care as a soldier would pick his weapons when he went over the top. She schooled her face and expressions as her camouflage, and she chose her words as a general planned his battles. Sansa wore blue-gray with pearls, styled her hair in low chignons, spoke softly, smiled slightly and somehow charmed everyone into temporarily forgetting that she had served as a nurse on the blood-soaked fields of France.

  
Why Sansa wanted everyone to forget was something Arya could not quite understand-or to be more precise why everyone and their grandmother in the entire bloody nobility would look down on her sister for nursing was what she could not understand. Sansa was more useful and did more good than any of those spiteful cats who still whispered behind their hands of how young Lady Sansa had been found disheveled and weeping after her mother’s old friend Baelish had left after an afternoon call and her presentation only a few months before! Oh she was untouched, she’d had an exam to prove it, but no girl attracted that kind of attention unless she sought it out. Arya still burned every time she remembered how her sister was considered “soiled”, how she had very quietly disappeared into her studies, how she was only acceptable now because in the aftermath of the ‘flu there was enough room for a woman with a minor scandal to her name, how- and now Sansa was looking at her with the slight frown between her eyes that meant Arya was gripping her knife a little too enthusiastically for polite company, and she had promised to be on her best behavior. If Sansa can listen to Lady Baratheon’s maliciously saccharine remarks without a flicker or expression Arya can refrain from stabbing Lady Baratheon with her dinner knife. It was going to be a long meal.  
   

   What felt like hours later Arya was reconsidering her former resolve. Why her parents had thought this lark of a visit to his childhood best friend at his wife’s family was just the thing escaped her. She wasn’t stupid thank you very much and she knew that her parents hoped for a match, but she could not honestly think that Tommen Baratheon genuine and kind as he was would be worth the family that came with him. Without including his uncle Stannis who was rumored to be the most disagreeable man alive and his late exceedingly unlamented brother Joffrey- the stories the maids told- there was still his father Robert Baratheon whose only desire it seemed was to eat, drink and whore his way thought life, his harpy of a mother Cersei, who while to be pitied in her marriage, said the cruelest words in the sweetest voice to all and sundry unless there was something she wanted, and his grandfather Tywin Lannister whose eyes and voice were colder than ice and if gossip was to be believed had sold his soul in exchange for his family fortune. Then there was his uncle Tyrion who while a dwarf was probably more intelligent than anyone in the room and never tired of repeating either fact or of telling stories that would put sailors to shame. Although to give credit where credit was due, Tommen’s sister Myrcella was a sweet girl by all accounts, and more importantly to Arya was doing a terrible job of hiding just how very much she wanted to leave the table. As for Tommen’s other uncle, Jamie, he was rarely seen in public since he had returned from France sans a hand and by all accounts a shadow of his former self.

  
   As yet another course was cleared, surely the next would be dessert, her attention was drawn or hauled to Robert who had gotten steadily drunker as the evening progressed. Apparently, someone, she entirely blamed Tyrion and his too clever tongue, had steered the conversation towards the battles of Robert’s youth in Africa and he was now slurring his way through yet another rendition of his prowess. Arya chanced a glance at her sister, even Sansa would engage in a discreet eyeroll because really how many times was one expected to politely listen, only to find that Sansa’s face was now smooth of all expression, as impenetrable and unreadable as the winter sky, a sure sign that she was calmly furious as Robert when on and on. Arya clenched her hands in her lap as she thought of what Sansa was surely dwelling on, the aftermath of the glory, the butcher’s bill. Cersei was in the midst of pontificating, her words buzzing in the room like a wasp’s wings, how if she were a man she too would have been brave and fearless, and would never have cowered in a trench while her countrymen died. And then Sansa put down her cutlery with a decided clink.

   “Lady Baratheon,” Sansa’s voice was as clear as a wintry morning, as smooth as glass. “I’m afraid I must trouble you for an explanation.”

“Ah, yes,” Cersei said pausing slightly in between words after an evening of wine. “Sweet little dove, of course you would not understand the glory in battle, how the trenches turned men into girls hiding from the enemy. You were busy with the womanly”, and Arya does not think she imagines the scorn, “art of healing.”

   “Yes,” her sister’s reply is steady. “I was.”  
“I was in a field hospital near the front when the wounded came in droves,” there is a terrible poetry in Sansa’s words and her eyes are burning cold. “I prepared men for surgery, I watched them bleed to death on the floor in front of me. I thought ‘I have had no life before this and I will have none after it. I have always been here with the shells screaming overhead and my dress warm and drenched red with blood and I will never be anywhere else.’ And at night now when the rain soaks the ground to mud and thunder cracks over my head, I smell blood in the rain.” Sansa smiles, bright as a polished knife, and twice as sharp. “Excuse me.”, and she leaves the table with all the grace of a dancer as she walks though the double doors.

  
   Arya looks at Tommen sees his wide eyes, and thinks that if the Queen herself would walk into the room he would be less in awe. Perhaps she’ll consider him after all.


	2. II Tyrion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all who reviewed or left kudos, you encouraged me to continue posting.  
> 

   Tyrion surveyed the dinner table, or as he was wont to say the instrument of slow death by boredom which was best taken with wine. Quite of bit of wine. His lord father’s disapproval was only an additional benefit. Tyrion was not Jaime, their father’s golden son and heir, he was against all fairness, merely the second son; and as such could do as he pleased.

Tonight’s dinner at least had the dubious benefit of company. While meals of late more often than not consisted of he and his father glaring at each other across a table, Jamie absenting himself more and more, a visit from his sweet sister and her family provided a decent change of scenery what with Robert and Cersei’s unofficial drinking games which had Robert’s speech becoming more and more inarticulate as the night wore on and Cersei’s becoming too precise and careful to maintain her façade of control. (A dwarf, a drunkard and a shell of a cripple, the pride of the Lannister’s, how the mighty have fallen.) Mycella was sweet and easily tolerated if a bit naïve, and Tommen was irksome if only because he could never seem to grasp his own worth. (Tyrion entirely blamed his late and unlamented nephew; Joffrey had his mother’s arrogance and entitlement, his father’s thoughtlessness and casual callousness, and his own cruelty- those poor cats, and maids, and, and, and. It would have only been a matter of time until even the Lannister money could no longer buy silence or acceptance.) As if all that wasn’t enough to try the tolerance of a saint, and Tyrion had never called himself as such, Cersei’s brother in law, Stannis, and his daughter, Shireen, were also set to join them (Why?) and Ned and Catelyn Stark were expected in a manner of days to accompany their two daughters with their youngest. It was more than sufficient to find what solace he could in the bottom of his glass.

The only bright spot? spots? the wine was beginning to affect him, of the evening were the two Stark girls who had arrived ahead of their parents. Sansa was as quietly well-mannered as you would expect of a woman who was trying to avoid mention of a prior scandal- something involving an old family acquaintance, Baelish? Balon? and inappropriate familiarity; the details escaped him at the moment. The girl had disappeared from well-bred society for years. Arya, on the other hand had all the makings of a delight. He had heard of her hoyden tendencies and been amazed along with the rest of society that her court presentation and debutante ball had been the cause of not a hint of disgrace to the young lady or her family quite unlike her aunt who she was said to resemble. (Lyanna Stark’s abduction from her fiancé with a very married man and father of two was still talked about if only because of Robert. The man all but composed sonnets about her perfection, or would if he had any talent.) If Tyrion was Ned Stark he would never have let her near Robert, oldest friend or no oldest friend, but the day Lord Stark willing asked a Lannister’s advice was the day he would be taller than Jaime. Ah well.

He would never be as tall or handsome as his older brother even if he had twice his brains, would never marry a beautiful well-born girl, but he could look, couldn’t he? There was no lasting harm in that. Arya, he very pointedly did not look at. If she was truly her aunt come again he would be sporting a black eye for weeks, but Sansa. Well, Sansa was quiet, polite, wouldn’t do anything to call attention to herself considering her past, and was very pleasant to look at. A bit on the thin side, but still very nice.

He can see the moment she notices his appreciative gaze, the way her lips press tightly together and her nostrils flare for a moment. Still, she doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even look at him because of course not. Why would she grace a dwarf of a second son with her company? He is annoyed with her, with her pretense of ignoring him when they both know she is unhappy with him, and to retaliate he traces her neckline with his eyes, smirks and trails his gaze a bit lower.

Then Robert started rhapsodizing about Lyanna Stark, again; and Tyrion couldn’t take it. Was he actually expected to listen to his brother in law wax on about his lost love while staring at said woman’s much younger niece? With a few deft quips Tyrion started Robert on his endless war reminisces, only for Cersei to sweetly slight quiet Sansa Stark. Who shot her down in flames.

As Sansa, gracefully regal, took her leave something niggled in the back of Tyrion’s mind. What had Cersei been saying? Something about womanly skills? Nursing, nursing that was it. Sansa Stark had been a nurse on the front during the Great War. Sansa was a nurse. Not a VAD but a properly trained nurse. Sansa Stark was a nurse and she was in his house, and Jaime. The golden son. His father’s favorite. His brother who tried to compromise between himself and Cersei. His brother who had everything Tyrion wanted. His brother who insisted on loving him in spite of the jibes he’d thrown his way. She could help Jamie. Tyrion waddled as fast as he could after her stately form.

 


	3. III Jaime

   “The things I do for love,” Jaime thought as he walked outside at the unholy hour of half past five in the morning. Light was just edging its way into the eastern sky and he was awake- well if he slept at night or not was always a throw of weighted dice- but he was awake, dressed, by _himself_ , thank you very much; all because Tyrion had come to him last night beyond drunk and announced with the same tone of pride in his voice as though he had single-handedly ratted out the trench that _Lady_ Sansa Stark would see to his hand in the morning if Jamie would be so good as to meet her outside at half past five? Tyrion was certain he would. So Jaime Lannister, stupidest of all the Lannister children, joke of an heir to Casterly Rock, idiot who got himself captured behind enemy lines even if he did manage to escape and make his way back to his men, and last but not least the gullible fool who trusted the lying surgeon who said he could save his hand only to cut it off once he had submitted to ether; headed out to make his little brother happy. What he did for love.

   To another observer the scene would have been charming; the light of dawn painting Lady Sansa’s fair skin with warmth and embellishing her fiery hair with gold. Jaime was decidedly not charmed; he’d had his fill and more of beautiful highborn women who pretended sympathy when all they felt was pity for him and awkwardness for themselves. “That’s Jaime Lannister”, he would hear whispered behind him, “Did you see his hand? I heard he locks himself away from company, doesn’t go out much. People say they’ve seen him hide from light and noises. They say he claims his hand pains him, but it’s no longer there.”  It was enough to drive him mad or madder than he already was; feeling his shattered hand throb when it had quite clearly been removed.

   “The sooner this is over the better,” Jaime thought and as soon as he thought he was within Lady Sansa’s hearing he began to sing just loudly enough to catch her attention, “Oh, it’s a long way to Tipperary…”.  It’s only slightly bawdy as songs go, but it’s enough to cause distress among upper class ladies.

   Later Jaime will curse himself-he _is_ the stupidest Lannister- for forgetting that no plan survives an encounter with the enemy. Lady Sansa’s smile is polite as anything with only a slight hint of … confusion? Does she not recognize the song? In any case her smile never reaches her eyes which is a shame. He thinks her eyes would look lovely, even with the blue shadows, if she smiled with her eyes and not her mouth.

   “Captain Lannister,” her voice is as smooth as her face, “your brother asked if I would see you. He said something about your hand?” it’s a question even if it’s framed as a statement.

   “Something about my hand? Do you care to be more specific Lady Stark?” he says, as he wonders for the hundredth time why his brilliant younger brother thought a VAD nurse would be the just the one to succeed in curing the pain in his missing hand. Couldn’t Tyrion had found someone even slightly more qualified? If this is another attempt of Tyrion at matchmaking, he shudders, remembering his interactions with beautiful sheltered women even as something niggles in some part of his mind. Something about Lancel or Adam.

   “Do you know what Tyrion told me last night?” he asks her, and without giving her time to respond continues. “He said that you would see to my hand, that you were the most glorious woman he had ever seen. He called you Boudicca with your long hair a cloak of fire around you, who strikes all silent in your wake.”

   “Did he?” Her voice and expression are only mildly curious. He could be talking about the possibility of rain later.

   “Yes,” Damn it, she’s not reacting the way he expected her to. “Nothing to say?”

   “I think,” Lady Sansa begins, “I think your brother was a little worse for the wine.”.

   He supposes ‘a little worse for the wine’ was a polite way of saying ‘falling down drunk’ which while true was not the answer he was looking for. “You aren’t flattered at his description?”

   “Captain Lannister,” Lady Sansa’s voice is almost sad. “Once the first blind man told me how beautiful I was, the compliment rather lost its charm.”

 Oh.

   As the implications begin to sink in he realizes that she’s saying something, but it takes him a minute to concentrate.

   “You weren’t at dinner last night,” it sounds as if she’s finishing a sentence.

   “Well, of course not,” and Jaime may be brusque, but why must she say that? Doesn’t she know he can’t? Even he, slow learner that he is, was made to understand.

   “Of course not?” she echoes him, a question plain in her voice. “Why?”

   If she’s trying to be sympathetic, she’s failing dismally which explains his sarcasm. “If you hadn’t noticed my lady, I seem to have misplaced my right hand,” which is now made of gold and covered with a flesh colored glove, mustn’t draw attention to his semi-empty sleeve. Lannisters are without flaws. 

   “I noticed,” her voice is still smooth. Does nothing shake this woman’s calm? “But I don’t understand. My brother was blinded, and he eats with us. I can’t see how a missing hand would be as different as all that.”

   “But how?” he whispers, as the shock of her words crashes into him with all the force of an exploding shell. “ _How?_ ”

   “Practice, trial and error,” Lady Sansa says with not a hint of impatience. “Everything is always set in exactly the same place, any food that needs to be cut is cut before by someone else, and whoever sits next to him helps with any mirror disturbances.”

   She makes it sound so _easy._ Jaime knows, he knows that it wasn’t always so simple, that she is not saying how many failures there had been before he was successful, but it doesn’t help. Her brother has something he wants desperately, but will never have and the longing rattles him to his core. He has lost his edge, his devil may care invulnerability, and it makes him lash out.

   “And which brother is that?” he somehow manages to sound bored. “Your mother’s or your father’s Targaryen bastard?”

   She freezes, her eyes wide; he has finally broken her unshakable composure.

   “What?” she almost whispers. “What did you say?”

   “Your father’s natural born son. The sole stain on the Honorable Ned Stark’s reputation. I believe his name’s Jon?”

   “Oh,” and damn if she isn’t the picture of calm again. “No, Jon was stationed in Ireland. My brother Robb is the one who was blinded. Mustard gas.”

   Mustard gas. The word brings the fragment of a thought niggling in his mind again. Something about Lancel and gas, and a nurse… and Lady Sansa is talking again. Without his noticing the sky has fully lightened.

   “Talk to my sister. Will I see you at breakfast?” And he is so lost in thought, so busy trying to remember that he agrees without noticing.

   “And Captain Lannister,” he looks up and sees that while she is no longer smiling politely her the corners of her lips are quirked up and her eyes are slightly mischievous. “I spent some time in Calais, and I heard all the sailors singing whilst on leave. “A Long Way to Tipprerary” is positively tame.” He sees her eyes sparkle and she walks into the house, and he cannot help but think perhaps breakfast may not be altogether terrible.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please tell me honestly that this isn't total junk.  
> Also, would anyone be interested in a companion piece which would basically be historical notes about WWI?


	4. IV Arya

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Please take notice of updated tags.  
> 2\. Does anyone think I need to bump the rating to M?

   “Wake up Sleeping Beauty,” Sansa’s entirely too awake voice chirped nearby. “I need to talk to you.” At all other times Arya considered Sansa’s early bird tendencies a heartening reminder that some things could consistently be relied on come what may, but when she wanted a sleep just a little longer as she did now it was downright irritating.

   “M’m up,” Arya mumbled from somewhere inside her cozy den of bedclothes. “M’m awake.” She heard a rustling noise and then Sansa abruptly tugged the covers off her head. “I said I’m awake!”  Arya scowled as she took in Sansa’s appearance; fully dressed, hair done, and wrapped in the white shawl Arya had knitted for her as a coming home gift. She would die before telling most people, but after knitting countless socks, scarves and the occasional sweater during the war Arya had found it enjoyable to make something that was not strictly utilitarian. And Sansa had always loved pretty things. The shawl was pretty and useful, maybe just maybe she would make one for herself and use it as blanket and…

   “Arya, this is important,” Sansa said urgently, interrupting her blissful daydream of wrapping herself in blankets and getting to back to sleep. “I need to talk to you before we go downstairs for breakfast.”

Drat, this sounded serious. “I’m listening,”

“I know we didn’t always get along,” Sansa started hesitantly. When Arya seemed about to disagree, she held up a hand. “You know we didn’t, there’s no need to deny it. I could be a wet blanket and you could be a handful.”

As much as Arya wants to protest she knows that Sansa’s right, when they were younger cats and dogs had gotten along better than the two of them. That doesn’t enlighten her as to why Sansa feels the need to bring all that up again. Bran is dead, Robb is blinded, Jon is away with his Irish wife; and they are alive and they are sisters and that’s what matters, not some stupid arguments from when they didn’t understand what was really important and how fast it could all be gone.

  “What do you remember from before I left for nurses training?” and Arya can’t help but notice the little signs that mean Sansa is uncomfortable; the way she doesn’t quite meet Arya’s eyes, her fingers beginning to twist around each other.”

   “Not much,” Arya admits. If she had to pick the lowest point of her and Sansa’s relationship it would be just before Sansa’s Court Presentation when all Sansa had wanted to talk about was gowns, balls and prospective suitors.

   “Do you remember Petyr Baelish?”

   “Isn’t that Mother’s childhood friend?”

    “Yes, well,” Sansa takes a deep breath. “You know many people tell me that I look very similar to Mother when she was young. I think that while Mother looked at him as a friend and a brother, Petyr looked at her a little differently.” Arya sees the red that is staining her sister’s cheeks and although she doesn’t know why, Arya doesn’t want to hear anymore.

   “I was stupid,” Sansa says quietly. “You were right. I was such a stupid girl with stupid dreams.” Her fingers are now twisted so tightly around themselves that Arya fears she will break them. “He complimented me, my hair. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t know what to do. Mother speaks so fondly of him, and Father trusts Mother.”

Not me is what Arya hears. Their father listens to their mother before he listens to his daughter.

   “I was in the drawing room by myself one day,” Sansa’s voice is far away and her eyes are looking at a memory only she sees. “I asked him to leave, I said it wasn’t proper for us to be unchaperoned, but he said that he was Mother’s oldest friend and he stroked my hair saying it was the same color as hers. I told him that I didn’t think we were supposed to be alone together, that he wasn’t supposed to touch me so intimately, but he didn’t listen, so I must have said it wrong. He, he told me I was beautiful and he, he kissed me. On the mouth.”

  “What happened then?” Arya asks dreading the answer.

   “I left. I almost ran to Mother and I asked if Mr. Baelish could leave. I made a bit of a spectacle of myself,” and Sansa sounds ashamed. “Then he,” and there is no doubt in Arya’s mind who _he_ is, “came over to Mother and apologized. He assured her that nothing untoward had occurred; that I had misunderstood, but I don’t _think_ I did. Anyway, there were enough people there that rumors of what happened spread. Father had wanted me to make a match of it with Joffrey Baratheon, but after what happened no one would even consider it unless I was examined.”

   “Examined?” Arya’s voice is faint in her own ears.

   “To confirm that I was untouched.” Sansa’s cheeks are now stained crimson. “It turned out to be good that I never enjoyed riding because I bled when I was inspected, and no one could doubt I was a virgin. It ended being a moot point of course because neither Robert nor Cersei wanted a woman with a scandal to her name.”

   “And Father and Mother both agreed to you being- examined?” Arya keeps her voice flat even though a familiar rage is starting to simmer.

  “Well, they had to.” Sansa, actually sounds surprised at the question. “They believed me, but I has made such a fuss that I needed to clear my name beyond any doubt. It wouldn’t have been honorable to shrink from the consequences of my poor decisions.”

   “And that’s why you left?” Arya wants to wrap her hands around Petyr Baelish, to stab him with her knitting needles, to tear his throat out with her teeth. Because how dare he? How dare he drag Sansa’s name through the mud? How dare he crush her sister’s dreams of love? How dare he walk away and leave Sansa to bear the blame? _How dare he?_

   “It was necessary. I had to leave so as to avoid having the rest of you gossiped about. There was talk of sending me to Mother’s family, but I was selfish and I didn’t want to go so far away. Father was very generous, he let me train as a nurse instead even though his and Mother’s reputation was at stake.”

   Father was very _generous_?

   “I’m not telling you this to try and excuse my mistakes,” _Sansa’s_ mistakes? “It’s only- I’ve seen Lord Robert look at you like Mr. Baelish would look at me, like you are his second chance at true love. Everyone says you look so much like Aunt Lyanna, and I think it would be best if you were to avoid Robert attention. I tried last night to make sure he would focus on me and not you, but I can’t always be there.”

And Arya’s hold on herself snaps. She paces the room, fighting the snarls that threaten to escape her throat. That Sansa’s should have to relive her nightmares to protect her, that Sansa blames herself for a grown man’s behavior, that their parents subjected her to such a violation, that they excused Baelish, that they made _Sansa_ feel to blame, that…

   “It wasn’t your fault,” Arya growls, and maybe she should be gentler, more comforting but she is long past being gentle. And Sansa needs to understand that she is not mouthing platitudes, but is telling the honest truth. “It was never your fault. You said you didn’t want his attentions and he forced them on you. Our parents should have ruined him for what he did. They should have forced him to apologize and exposed him as the scoundrel he is. They should _never_ have even considered that you were in any way to blame for the situation that he put you in!”

   “Arya, that’s very kind of you but-“

   “The hell with kindness!” and for once Sansa doesn’t say ‘Language, Arya.’ “Repeat after me: Petyr Baelish took advantage of me, and it was not my fault.”

Hesitantly, as though she what she’s saying is too good to be true, Sansa repeats the sentence.

   “Good,” Arya says. “That’s a good start, but we’ll be repeating this over and over again until you believe it. Now, what happened with you and Captain Lannister?” and Arya settles in to let her sister tell about her morning meeting.


	5. V Tommen

    As far back as Tommen could remember his father had talked about Lady Lyanna Stark. He would mention her unconventional beauty, her horsemanship, her willfulness, her hoyden tendencies, her independence. Frankly, and Tommen had never said so, especially to Myrcella who thought the whole thing tragically romantic, it sounded to him as if the tragedy would have been if the two had actually married. He could not for the life of him see the woman his father described being content never mind happy while married to his father. Over all it was enough to mostly discourage any romantic tendencies of his even if he still cherished thoughts of marrying for affection, an advantage to being the second son.

   Then Joffery had somehow survived every combat mission he had flown only to die gasping in his bed of ‘flu-Tommen would never forget the sight of his brother who had tormented and mocked him as far as he could remember lying with blood streaming from his nose and blue mottling his face, the realization that he was not perfection, just a man- and their mother had grudgingly turned her attentions to Tommen and his duty to the family which included marriage to a woman suitable to his station as heir to Storm’s End and Casterly Rock. (Why she was so certain that he would inherit the Rock was something he didn’t quite understand. There was nothing to stop Uncle Jaime from marrying and having an heir of his own.) In any case, Tommen had exchanged hopes of a marriage of mutual affection for a marriage of mutual respect until he had attended Lady Arya Stark’s presentation ball.

   Lady Arya was a revelation. From the moment he met her assessing gaze he had thought that here was a woman who knew her mind. If she would consider him as a husband she would do so for herself with no thought to society or money. When he had heard that the Starks planned an extended visit, he had allowed himself to hope.

   Entering the dining room for breakfast he could not stop himself from smiling as he caught sight of the Stark sisters already seated with his grandfather drinking their tea, Lady Sansa bright eyed and Arya decidedly not. About to wish them a good morning, his smile died as he noticed that his mother had decided to grace them with her presence that morning. What was more jarring was the sight of Uncle Jaime in an increasingly rare appearance.  

   In Tommen’s memories his uncle had always had a slightly arrogant, devil-may-care attitude to match his careless good looks. The man in front of him with his empty, painfully hopeful eyes, inelegantly combed hair and gaunt frame was a shadow of his former self. Tommen looked at the disdain of his mother’s face and braced for trouble which was not long in coming.

   As Jaime awkwardly settled himself on Lady Sansa’s left and was greeted with a warm smile, quite a change from her usual one, his mother- and it could not have been an accident- knocked the heavy teapot to the floor with a resounding clang-crash causing his uncle to jump and flail, delivering a glancing blow to Sansa’s arm with his false hand which left her wincing in pain. The silence was deafening.

   Lady Sansa turned to Uncle Jaime to reassure him? to inquire as to his well-being? but he had already jerkily pulled away from the table, his cheeks stained a brilliant crimson.

   Seeming rather satisfied, his mother looked at Lady Sansa. “I fear I must apologize for my brother,” she said in the saccharine tone Tommen has come to hate. “I do hope you’re not too badly hurt.”

   “There is no need Lady Baratheon,” Lady Sansa says with a slight smile; and how his mother does not quail in her seat at her expression, her eyes as sharp as a falcon considering a rabbit is something Tommen cannot understand. “I’ve had worse.”

   “Lord Tommen,” she continues after a sip of tea, “my sister expressed an interest in seeing your grandfather’s library. Perhaps you’ll show us after we eat.”

   Normally Tommen would wonder at his being alone with a young lady with only her sister as a chaperone. He did not wonder now. If Arya was the wolf fearlessly hunting her prey, Sansa was the falcon who struck from on high with no warning other than the air whistling as she plunged. He would be mad to try anything untoward he thought, as he showed Arya around the library and talked of the future of motorcars of all things while Sansa sat at the piano bench, back perfectly straight and read Dante’s _Divine Comedy._  

  All in all, Tommen felt his time with Arya was a success. If she had no interest in him she would not have spent hours in conversation with him, family expectations or no. To his disappointment however, neither she nor her sister were in attendance at dinner that night. Lady Sansa was apparently ill with a headache and her sister was keeping her company which at least meant his father would not be reminiscing about Lyanna Stark whilst staring at Arya.

   As he and Uncle Tyrion left the dinner table he was surprised to see the Stark sisters, neither dressed for dinner, standing at the base of the staircase.

   “Lord Tyrion,” and for someone who was supposed to be in bed with a headache Lady Sansa was looking remarkably well, “will you be so kind as to take me to your brother?”

“At this hour? I don’t think so,” he said and made to push his way past. However, Tyrion had not stinted on his wine that evening, and it was an easy matter for Lady Sansa’s hand to dart out and clamp onto his shoulder with a steel grip.

“You’ll take me to your brother.”

“Lady Sansa,” Uncle Tyrion’s voice is faltering, uncertain, “think about your reputation, what people will think when they hear that you were alone with a man.” It is a low blow and he sees Arya shift her stance, eyes narrowed, ready to leap on her prey. Her sister pays his uncle no mind.

“You will take me to your brother. Now.”. It is as if his uncle had not just insulted her, had not dragged her past into the present. Lady Sansa is utterly unperturbed.  “Lady Arya,” and oh she is clever, to casually remind him of her sister’s status, “will stand outside as chaperone.”

 Arya nods in agreement. “So will Tommen,” as though they have discussed this before and maybe the sisters have. In any case the thought of objecting does not cross Tommen’s mind.

   “Excellent. Lead the way, then.” Lady Sansa’s voice is calm as calm can be, the tone of someone who is complete certain of being obeyed.

   This, Tommen thought giddily, _this_  was what Grandfather meant when he said that anyone who truly had authority never felt the need to say so as he followed along in their wake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who wants a historical companion piece- two more requests ;)


	6. VI Sansa

   As she knocked decisively on Jaime Lannister’s bedroom door Sansa took a moment to evaluate her appearance. A long, loosely fitted gray skirt. A plain, white blouse with a high neckline she has borrowed from a lady’s maid. Her hair pulled back from her face, braided and coiled at the back of her head. No jewelry. She could not find a nurse’s uniform, but it would do. At a muffled “Come in”, she stepped inside.

   “Captain Lannister,” she hopes the formality, the military title will provide Lord Jaime with some ease of mind. He can be any officer injured in the line of duty, and she can be any nurse assigned to treat him.

   “Who showed you my room?” he is caught off guard, angry, but he does not throw her out and she takes that as permission to close the door behind her.

   “I enlisted your brother’s help.” As she speaks Sansa looks him over appraisingly. For his height and build, he is far thinner than he should be if the sharpness in his face in any indication. To her indescribable relief she does not see the fixed stare and facial tics that mark the most severe shell shock cases, only the dark shadows and tight lines that denote sleeplessness or pain. If they are connected, if it is pain that keeps him awake and unable to eat, then she can improve both if she can alleviate his pain. Continuing her assessment, her gaze travels downwards noting the tension in his neck, shoulders and right upper arm, how his left hand is holding…

   “Is that made of _gold_?” and if she doubts the evidence before her eyes Sansa thinks she can be excused. Who would think to make a hand and a good three inches of forearm of solid gold? Never mind ostentation, the sheer absurdity of using such a heavy metal as a prothesis almost makes her laugh.

   “My sister gave it to me,” her estimation of Cersei Baratheon; and yes, Sansa makes a point of referring to her as such, and if it is petty then well, she never claimed to be perfect, drops even further. “She said it was a gift from our father, that even if I was a poor excuse for a Lannister I would be ornamented accordingly.”

   Which doesn’t exactly fit with her impressions of Lord Lannister. He strikes her as stern man, cold, capable of ruthlessness, proud, yes, but not to the point of forming a prothesis of gold to showcase his wealth. 

   “I see,” Somehow, she will find a way to broach the topic with Lord Lannister without insulting his intelligence, but for now she moves briskly along to her objective. “How do I take it off?”

   “No,” Lord Jaime; ‘ _Captain Lannister’_ she reminds herself, snaps. “It’s not something you should see.”

   Four years’ worth of experiences tumble through her head; reminding her that this is _not_ an insult, _not_ a way to disregard her, but a rather an attempt of self-protection, and it is this knowledge that shapes her response.

  “Captain Lannister,” Sansa keeps her inflection matter-of-fact, “I’m not sure what you heard, but I’m didn’t serve with the VAD. I completed my nurse’s training before I left for France and was paid for my time.” Just as she thought, the word ‘paid’ is what makes him look at her. Money is never falsely sympathetic not is it pitying. “Now”, she continues leaving him no time to renew his objections, “perhaps you could be so kind as to tell me why you called Jon my father’s Targaryen bastard while I try my luck with that…apparatus .”

   One step, two steps and she is kneeling next to his chair, _not_ bending over; her being lower will give him a semblance of control and because Sansa has learned through painful experience that bending for long periods is something to be avoided; and Lord Jaime, _Captain Lannister!_ slowly begins to talk.

   “When I was younger,” she finds the leather straps of the golden implement and begins to work them open, holding his upper forearm as she does so. “My father worked closely with Lord Targaryen. I would accompany him sometimes. He was a terrible man, but his wife, Lady Rhaella, she’s a sweet woman.” He hissed as she managed to get the hand off and Sansa almost drops the thing, it’s even heavier than she thought.

   “Try to relax,” Sansa offers in place of a useless apology. “I’m going to massage your arm from just below the shoulder and down; it should help with the pain.” She’d prefer first applying hot wet towels to loosen the muscles, but she doesn’t think he’ll appreciate the extra fuss. “Keep going, you have my attention.”

   “Aerys never hit her, at least not in public,” he continued, “but he humiliated her at every opportunity. He called her a failure for only producing two living sons, as though that was her fault. He would threaten her, give her gifts the next day, then scream at her hours later; I don’t think she ever knew which Aerys she would be met with. She was always afraid.”

   “I would visit with her while my father had his meetings with Aerys, he continued with a hint of a smile. “I would walk with her in the garden- she loved her flowers and tended to them herself. I was with her, carrying her tools, waiting for my father to return when Aerys experiments set his house on fire with him inside.”

   “I would have tried to get him out, but Rhaella had collapsed and was bleeding-maybe it was the shock, maybe Aerys had something to do with it but she was having a miscarriage, not that I knew that at the time. So, I had a choice, I could save a man who if not for his wealth and position would probably have been locked up, or I could stay with his wife who was bleeding on the ground in pain. Staying with Rhaella seemed to be the obvious decision, but almost no one else agreed. ‘Lord Lannister’s heir had dallied with Lady Targaryen whilst letting her husband burn,’ people whispered and my father shipped me off to America until the gossip died down.”

   “That doesn’t explain Jon,” she comments, now working the tension from what remained of his forearm.

   “Yes, well, I was in London at the same time as him, and for all his Stark looks he reminded me of Rhaella. He had her expression, her sad eyes, and I’ve thought of it ever since.”

   Oh dear. “Does your hand pain you less now,” she’s reached his stump.

   “Yes.”

   “No not your arm,” Sansa says deliberately, so there is no room for misunderstanding. “Your right hand.”

   From the shock on Captain Lannister’s face, and she is pleased that she is now thinking of him as such, she’s hit a nerve.

   “I’ve heard of it before, feeling pain in a missing limb. I always thought it was a foolish thing to lie about; it’s too fantastic to be anything but the truth. What happened to your hand? Why was it removed?”

   “It was stomped on by German boot. All the bones were shattered, and some skin was broken. Why do you want to know?”

   “I’m a nurse, or I used to be,” Sansa reminds him. “It seems that when there is significant damage before amputation there is a greater chance of feeling pain in a removed limb; I don’t know why.”

   “So, I’m not going mad,” and there is such terrible _hope_ in his eyes. “I won’t become like those poor fellows.”

   “Captain Lannister,” military titles, she is an experienced nurse with a professional opinion. “I’ve seen severe shell-shock, and what you said bears no similarity. Put the idea out of your head,” and the _relief_ on his face, in his _eyes_.

   “It does feel better, my hand.”

   “Excellent. Try to avoid wearing the prosthetic; I think it’s a contributing factor,” not that she thinks for one minute that he’ll take her advice. He is far too proud to be seen with an empty sleeve. “I should go.”

   “Wait.” It seems he had not planned to say that because he scrambles on hurriedly, “you haven’t said anything about your brother.”

   Sansa turned back from the door. “Very well, I suppose I do owe you an explanation, but this can never leave this room.”

   “One day a soldier was brought in with septicemia while I was on duty. It was something that had happened countless times before and would happen countless times after, but,” Sansa pauses reliving the terror she had felt.

   “But?”

   “I looked at him and I saw Jon. He was filthy, like so many soldiers and I couldn’t make out the finer details of his face, but it was Jon even though I knew perfectly well that Jon was on reserve duty in Ireland and nowhere near France. I can’t explain it,” she continues, “I found out that his name was Viserys Targaryen before he died, and I’ve never gotten the moment I thought he was my brother out of my head.”

   “So you think your brother is half Targaryen,” and it’s a statement and a question together in one sentence.

   “Captain, all I can tell you with certainty are these facts. My aunt Lyanna either ran off with or was abducted by Rhaegar Targaryen, no one is quite sure. Rhaegar died a little over a year later after his horse threw him while being chased by Robert Baratheon, and my father found Lyanna dying in a secluded house a month later. My father, who had barely been married a year, returned with his sister’s body and a baby he claimed as his own. Make of that what you will. Goodnight, Captain Lannister.”

   “I’m not a captain anymore,” he calls after her. “My name’s Lord Jaime.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to StarlightAsteria whose depiction of Jaime and Rhaella inspired me. Thank you!


	7. VII Tywin

“Repeat that,” Tywin Lannister looked up at the butler.

“Lady Sansa Stark asked if it would be possible to meet with you,” Mr. West said almost defensively. 

“Show her in.”

While West went to fetch Lady Stark, Tywin took the time to consider what she could possibly want with a personal meeting. He was well aware of her visit to his son’s room the previous night.

In less than ten minutes Lady Stark was shown in. As usual her clothing was simple but elegant, her lack of gloves the only remnant of her nursing years. 

“Lord Lannister, thank you for agreeing to see me on such short notice.” Lady Sansa’s sounds as composed as she looks. “As I’m sure you know I visited your son last night.”  
“You’re sure that I know,” is all he can think to say. This young, composed, slip of a thing has done the implausible and surprised him.  
“Lord Lannister, I asked a maid to if I could borrow a blouse. The moment I did so, I knew that you would be told.” She pauses and then, “Rose-is that her name? Rose all but interrogated me to make certain I had no questionable intentions Lord Jaime. Your servants are very protective of your son, it reflects well on him and on you by extension.”

She’s good, better than Cersei, he’ll give her that much. She knows which compliments will mean the most to him, but if she thinks that she can flatter him into submission she’s mistaken. 

“And?”

“Are you aware Lord Lannister, that the prothesis your son was given is more weapon than anything else?” Lady Sansa asked as she undid the button on the cuff of her blouse and pulled up her left sleeve, revealing an ugly blue-green bruise near her elbow exactly where Jaime’s hand had been the previous morning after Cersei had startled him.

“I wondered,” Lady Sansa continues, “what a prosthesis could be made of to cause such a mark. I thought that if I spoke to Lord Jaime in private we would be less likely to be,” she hesitates, “accidentally”, and there’s a touch of sarcasm, “distracted.”

“Who else knows?” he is brusque, demanding and he’ll ask after her comfort later but this cannot get out. Jaime is fine despite what Cersei insinuates, and there will be hell to pay for anyone who dares claim otherwise.

“I do. The maid, Rose, does because I asked her if she could add to the sleeves on my dresses, and my sister. I can’t speak for Rose, but Arya hasn’t told anyone, nor will she.” 

“And Lord Jaime?” If he was a praying man then he would ask that somehow Jaime remained unaware of the pain he had caused. If there was one crime his son would never forgive himself of, it would be to strike a woman.

For her part Lady Sansa looks genuinely perplexed. “Of course, I haven’t told him, what would be the point?”

Money. Leverage. Power.

“I am telling you, Lord Lannister, only because Lord Jaime is under the impression that you ordered that hand made for him. I’m certain that you would not have done so and therefore something must have been miscommunicated along the way.”

“Hmph,” is all he allows himself. Lady Sansa is absolutely correct, if only because a golden hand is something only those newly into money would do. Those newly into money, and he shudders internally to think it, his own daughter who will henceforth be closely supervised whilst under his roof.

“I realize,” Lady Sansa continues, carefully picking her words, “that Lord Jaime will not wish to be seen with an empty sleeve. Perhaps he can be persuaded to wear a sling until a new prosthesis can be ordered and fitted? It would lessen the strain on the remaining arm which would not only prevent an unbalanced carriage of his shoulders, but should also ease the pain in his hand.”

“Are you admitting to the option that his pain is not entirely a product of his imagination?” it’s one of the more damaging rumors floating around and any medical validation, even from a nurse not a doctor, would be significant in counteracting.

“Lord Lannister,” there’s a small smile on Lady Sansa’s face. “If someone had said to you thirty years ago that one-day people could see inside a living human body, what would you have said?”

He doesn’t see her point; but so far she has shown herself to be an intelligent woman and he indulges her somewhat nonsensical question.” I would have said they were mad or drunk.”

“Exactly, but with the new x-rays we can do just that. We can see the skeleton, and fragments left in a wound. We’re no longer going into surgery with our best guess, but with a visual of what we expect to find.”

‘You think that one day we’ll be able to see what causes pain.” It’s a worthy idea.

“Not now, but someday. We know that x-rays don’t show everything clearly. There are muscles and ligaments that are undefined on the films. Why wouldn’t there be a better method that we don’t know of yet?” Lady Sansa leans forward in her chair slightly, “I am determined that when future doctors and scientists look back at us they do not think that we were so proud and yet we knew so little. I want them to think that we did the best we could with what we had, but we always tried to improve.”

“Well said,” usually he would not say forward thinking is a compliment, but in this case she is absolutely right. “Even for shell shock?”

Lady Sansa looks thoughtful. “In a way I hope not, I hope very much that we have seen enough of war and that in the future shell shock will not exist.” 

“Lord Jaime is not a severe case,” she adds, hearing the unspoken question. “Nor do I think it at all likely he will become one in the future. Whatever changes you’ve noted will most probably be the extent of his symptoms.”

While that isn’t precisely what he wanted to hear, it was a relief to know that there was no reason his son should be less than capable. In any event he was rich enough to be eccentric, not a lunatic.

“Will that be all?” he has physical rehabilitation experts to contact.

“The sooner Lord Jaime can be convinced to wear a sling the better. I imagine that you have telephone calls to make and letters to write so I’ll leave you to your work and go back to chaperoning.”

“Ah, yes. My grandson has turned out to be far less of a disappointment than I feared. Is your sister aware that she may not be able to influence him so easily? If Lady Arya intends to rule his grandson she can think again. Never again will a Lannister scion be mocked for having a woman rule him.

“Lord Lannister, I think you like many other people, rather miss the point. My sister wants to be her husband’s equal. That does not mean she wishes a weak-willed man. She wants a strong man to be her equal as well. She seeks to partner, not dominate.”

“I see.” It puts him in mind of Johanna. There was a woman who knew her own mind. “If you are in the library again,” somehow this feels right to do. Lady Sansa is not Johanna but his late wife would be pleased with his idea, “feel free to use the piano. It’s always kept in tune.” As if he would let something his wife prized so highly deteriorate.

“Good Morning,” he rises; Lady Sansa is young but she is quite a lady, “and thank you for bringing this matter to my attention.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts anyone???


	8. VIII Jaime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> @StarlightAsteria- Guess who solved her Dorne problem?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic had now hit 10K words!  
> A historical reference piece is now available.

After an extremely unsettling talk with his father in which he was informed in no uncertain terms that he would be seen by a physical rehabilitation specialist to reassess his current prosthetic and that in the meantime he was to, ‘be sensible and wear a sling’, which was immediately extended; after running into Cersei outside Father’s study and enduring her poorly veiled scorn at the sight of his bound arm; Jaime’s intention for the remainder of the day, to avoid all human interaction, was abruptly halted outside the library at the unmistakable sound of someone playing a piano. Intent on discovering who would presume to do such a thing; no one had ever so much as touched his mother’s piano in all the years since her death, and giving the offender the reaming out of a lifetime, he was struck by the sight of Lady Sansa playing and, for the first since he’d met her, actually smiling. 

About to make a quick about face and leave; far be it from him to disturb her the one time she looked to be truly enjoying herself, he was foiled by the lady herself looking up from piano keys and catching his gaze. 

“Captain Lannister,” and she actually sounded happy to see him which shocked him enough to say the first thought in his head.

“That’s my mother’s piano.” 

He wanted to kick himself. ‘That’s my mother’s piano?’ Could he never manage anything intelligent? Wasn’t it enough that he wasn’t whole, that he was a useless cripple? Why couldn’t he at least be clever?

“Oh,” Lady Sansa sounds apologetic. “Your father didn’t tell me that when he said I could play it if I wanted. I’ll stop if it troubles you.”

“No!” oh, he’s hopeless. “I mean if Father gave you permission, then it’s perfectly alright for you to use it I was just,” and then Lady Sansa gets up from the piano bench and walks over with a little more than her usual polite smile peeking through.

“Could I trouble you to keep me company for bit? My sister and your nephew are involved in an intense chess match and I confess that I don’t have the talent to appreciate the display.”

He can’t help but look at his false hand now obviously useless and cradled in a sling, to remember Cersei’s mocking eyes from earlier, her ‘Should you really be out with company in the house? I do want a decent match for my remaining son.’, his stammered apologies for embarrassing the family which she had accepted with a ‘Try not to let it happen again.’.

“Do you know Captain Lannister,” her sharp eyes have followed his gaze. “My sister and I have an ongoing disagreement. Arya says that society is unfair to women by making their virtue their only worth. She’s not wrong, but it’s just as unfair to men. According to society a man who is no longer whole is no longer a man, which I think equally unjust. If a woman’s worth is more than her virtue, a man’s worth is more than his wholeness of body.”

He is briefly shocked into silence. No one, certainly no young woman has ever said anything remotely comparable. Pity for him, for his loss; but never anything even insinuating that a lost hand did not define who he was.

“Lady Sansa,” he manages to keep his voice steady, “I would be honored to keep you company.” He is rewarded with a radiant smile, as they make their way over to a sofa.

“If I may Lady Sansa,” there, he can manage intelligent conversation, “You seem to be unusually happy today. Did you receive some particularly good news?”

“Yes! I apologize for my enthusiasm, but not only was my letter not the bearer of bad news, it informed me that a dear friend of mine is engaged to be married!”

He cannot help but smile, and it feels strange on his face, at her wondering joy. A letter that isn’t a message of tragedy is cause enough for celebration, never mind one that tells of a festive occasion.

“My congratulations. Do I perhaps know the happy couple?”

“I’m not sure. You may know the groom, Willas Tyrell, he was actually a patient of mine in ’18. The bride’s name is Allyria Dayne, she’s my closest friend.”

“Dayne?” no, he tells himself. It would be too good to be true. “Do you know her family?”

“She lives in France with her Aunt Ashara. That’s where we met. She worked with the International Red Cross. She’s not French though, she’s an American. Her father was Arthur Dayne.”

“He’s dead then. I hoped that somehow,” he trails off. “I didn’t want to believe it.”

“You knew him then,” Lady Sansa softly, and he doesn’t look at her face as he answers. If he does, he fears he will cry like a child.

“I met him in New York while I waited for another scandal that people would talk about instead of everything with Lady Rhaella.” He refrains from mentioning that the next scandal involved her aunt. “He got his sister out of a terrible marriage. He cared about all people, not just his own, but he was never self-righteous and he would laugh at himself. He loved and respected his wife, Lucie, and he was never disappointed that he had a daughter but no sons. He was everything I wanted to be,” he found himself admitting.

“He sounds like a wonderful man,” Lady Sansa says softly. “Do you want to know how he died?”

“Please.”

“Allyria and her parents always spent the beginning of the summers with her mother’s family in Louvain and then would spend the end of the summers with her aunt Ashara in France,” she begins. “Once she was old enough to travel alone she would go ahead of her parents and they would have a private vacation, so when the Germans invaded she was relatively safe in France, but her parents were still with her mother’s family in Louvain. Her mother got her a letter at some point, I don’t know how. Her father was killed in the sack of Louvain. It seems that while he was trying to find his father-in-law at the library, he came across some soldiers attacking a family. He bought them enough time to hide, but he was killed in the process. Allyria spent most of the next three years trying to get her mother into France, but she died sometime in the winter of ’17. No one really knows from what, but it was a terrible winter.”

“I know,” Jaime says quietly, remembering the bitter cold. “I don’t think I would have been able to escape the prison camp otherwise. Everyone was too busy trying to stay warm and fed to notice a solitary runaway.”

Instead of a flurry of comments and questions Lady Sansa nods as a veteran of the same winter, and they spend the next minutes in a respectful silence.

“Your sister plays very well,” Jaime finally remarks.

“Yes,” Sansa, he can think of her as Sansa in his own mind surely? says proudly. “She taught herself algebra and geometry after our governess left.”

“What about you? Did you also teach yourself higher mathematics?”

“Oh, no I’m afraid that higher mathematics is a bit beyond me. I was better at other subjects, history, literature. When my brother, Robb, went to university he would sometimes share his books with me. I was also a reasonably good student of French but it wasn’t until I spent four years speaking the language constantly that I became fluent.”

“Then why?” he trails off.

“Why?” she prompts.

“It’s just that from what you said I wouldn’t have thought you would be interested in nursing.”, he pauses, remembering just what had preceded her interest in nursing. “Forgive me, it isn’t my business.” 

“No, it’s a good question.” She stops for a moment, then continues, “It’s very considerate of you not to bring my past up, but we both know that you’re aware of some of the details.”

He nods, but hastens to add, “Believe me Lady Sansa my own experience has taught me to take any such rumors with a healthy amount of skepticism.”

“Then you know that I needed to disappear so as bring any further shame on my family, and well,” she hesitates. “When I was younger I would pretend to be a Lady in the old stories, but it wasn’t just because I wanted to be the princess in the fairy-tales. The women who were ladies of the manor-it wasn’t just a decorative position. If I was the Lady I would have done something worthwhile. I would have cared for those under my charge, I would have arranged for the storage and dispensing of food, and I would supervise the making and distribution of cloth. I would sew and embroider clothing, not useless pillows whose only use is to gather dust. The physical and spiritual wellbeing of any servant or underling would have been my responsibility, not just a token gift at Christmas. Becoming a nurse was the closest I could get to that. So I learned how to cook, how to do plain sewing, how to live by myself and I studied to become a nurse.” There’s another pause and then she says, “You must think me foolish.”

“No,” he says, because how could she possibly think that? How can she think she is somehow lacking? “Quite the opposite.” 

“Thank you, Captain,” she says; and no, he no longer takes comfort in the distance her use of his rank offers.

“Lord Jaime,” he amends firmly. “Call me Lord Jaime.”

“Thank you,” Sansa eyes are very bright. “Lord Jaime.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a first fic so any feedback is highly appreciated. On that note-and it won't be applicable for a while- how descriptive should the Jaime/Sansa (is there a ship name?) be?


	9. IX Arya

Arya frowned at her lunch before catching Sansa’s slightly raised eyebrows and remembering their early morning discussion. True to her word Arya had forced herself awake at a time more suited to Sansa’s early riser tendencies to reiterate to her sister that Petyr thrice-dammed Baelish had taken advantage of her and it was not her fault. (She had stopped short of criticizing their parents; too much too fast did more harm than good as Sansa had repeatedly cautioned Jon and Roslin throughout their recovery from ‘flu.) That of course had led to Sansa’s worries over Lord Baratheon’s response to her resemblance to her long dead aunt Lyanna; which only reinforced her desire to rid the world of the parasite called Baelish if for no other reason than for causing Sansa to be constantly afraid. (Sansa had laughed and told her to join the queue, there was a line of French soldiers who were given faulty gas masks produced by him in an effort to line his pockets ahead of her.) In the end Sansa had suggested that she present a demure and mild demeanor in an effort to distance herself from Lyanna’s memory. Which was why she was pretending not to notice Lord Tyrion’s undisguised and entirely unwelcome appreciative gaze at her sister’s breasts instead of flogging him with the sharp edge of her tongue.

‘Fifteen birds in five fir trees,’ she singsonged mentally. The utterly nonsensical line Sansa had brought back from the Somme helped keep a pleasant smile on her face. That and daydreaming about a line of soldiers out for Baelish’s blood.

“I was wondering,” Tommen said as they walked towards his grandfather’s stables and checked to see if Sansa was in earshot. “Would your sister object to a crippled man as a husband?”

The very idea that Sansa was good only for a cripple because of her past made Arya see red. Still, Tommen had always been thoughtful and considerate until now-he had never so much as insinuated anything about Sansa- so she gave him the benefit of the doubt. After all, there were much fewer whole men to go around.

“Do you have someone in particular in mind?” Perhaps he’s thinking of a friend or a cousin of some sort.

“Well actually,” and Tommen actually blushes, “I wonder what you think of my Uncle Jaime?”

‘He’s so much older than her!’ is her first indignant thought. Then she remembers Tommen beating her at chess earlier by adapting his strategy to her style of play, and instead says, “Tell me more,” as they reach the stables and Sansa settles herself on a convenient bale of hay to write a letter. 

“I was sitting so I could see them this morning,” Tommen starts-and how he had managed to play such a good game while he was paying attention to something else was something she would very much like to know- “and Uncle Jaime didn’t look like the ground was about to collapse underneath him like he usually does with other people. Lady Sansa also looked, well, relaxed.”

“I hope you don’t mind,” he continued pointing at a covered basket, “but I asked the kitchen staff to bring us sandwiches, scones, and something to drink; and then I asked my uncle if he could show us the horses. I thought if it wasn’t in front of an audience maybe he would….I just want him to eat something.” Tommen trailed off.

From what she’s seen of Jaime Lannister Arya cannot help but agree. Even if the man hadn’t gotten a smile from Sansa, he still looked too much like Sansa when she had returned home after nursing one final group of ‘flu victims. ‘Like hell,’ as Roslin had pithily told Robb.

And speak of the devil and he shall appear; Jaime Lannister walked tentatively into the stable with his right hand now bound in a sling (Arya approved of the sling. Whatever had made that sort of a bruise on Sansa was too heavy to be carried around like so much dead weight. And it was good to know that Lord Lannister had the good sense to listen to Sansa.) directly into Sansa’s sightline. Who looked up and smiled with her eyes before inviting him to sit. 

Well then.

“Sansa loves reading just about anything, but she particularly loves history and poetry. If our parents had allowed it I think she would have been able to study history and literature at a university, maybe even at Oxford. Is that something your Uncle would find fault with?”

Tommen hesitates before replying. “I don’t know. He wouldn’t mind that she would have wanted to study although he may have a few things to say about your parents.” and winces. “I’m sorry Lady Arya, that was uncalled for.”

‘No, it’s not,’ she wants to say among other things such as she has a few things she’d like to tell her too. “Never mind, you were saying?”

“It’s complicated. Mother always says that of all the Lannisters she is the only one who managed not to sacrifice beauty or cleverness for the other. She, ah, insinuates that the only thing he was smart enough to manage was to look like her and then he ruined even that. I wouldn’t take what she says as gospel, but I do know that Uncle Jaime only reads and writes as much as is absolutely necessary. He does have an excellent memory for anything he hears though. From what I understand he was one of the best at remembering orders even if he only heard them once.”

Arya considers. “Well, you haven’t really read "The History of William Marshall" until Sansa’s read it to you, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

“So…”

“So I’m willing to give your uncle a chance, but if Sansa is hurt in any way I’ll make him wish he died of ‘flu.”

“That’s alright then,” Tommen replied, “because if she plays him, she’ll regret it.”

And yes Arya thinks, she can so easily fall for this man who is so protective of his family,(not his mother, but she wouldn’t be in his place) who is wise enough to take all extenuating factors into consideration before coming to a conclusion, and who moreover respects her sister enough to recognize that if she ever wanted to, she could utterly destroy someone.

“Then Lord Tommen, we have a deal.”

“And the deal is struck Lady Arya.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the history nerds the William Marshall mentioned is a real historical person. Fun trivia point he married Isabel de Clare when he was 43 and she was 17 (the marriage was more or less a reward for service rendered to the crown he was a third or fourth son and she was a wealthy heiress) By all accounts they had a very successful marriage; she would govern their lands while he was on campaign and he was known to state publicly before his vassals that everything he owned was through her. His name for her was Belle Aimee, his Beautiful Friend.
> 
> Thoughts anyone? I've changed the chapters titles somewhat, how did it affect your reading experience?


	10. X Sansa

October, 1919

Dearest Sansa,

I AM ENGAGED TO MARRY WILLAS TYRELL! Yes, all in capital letters and I can see his grandmother mouthing “such an American”, but I don’t care! I was beginning to worry that it was all in my head, that I was imagining Willas’s feeling for me, but I WASN’T. I should have known that a man who was considerate enough to not assume I would be open to a correspondence without asking would not encourage a relationship for months if he wasn’t planning on following through. 

I don’t mean to say that it has been all smooth sailing. His mother has been nothing but kind and welcoming, but his grandmother! Apparently the only thing worse than a middle class- is now the time to correct her and say upper middle class?- is one who is half Belgian and a Papist to boot. It was probably more for dramatic effect than anything else, but Lady Tyrell- is his grandmother Lady Tyrell or his mother? I find the it a bit confusing- nearly fainted when she heard that we plan to raise our children in the Catholic faith. As far as she’s concerned we’re dooming our still hypothetical children to a lifetime of misery. The cynical part of me can’t help but think that she’s more concerned for her own reputation or perhaps Margarey whom she dotes on. I am not quite sure why she considers her the best of her grandchildren, I never knew Loras, but Garlan is my childhood daydream of a brother and Willas even if I wasn’t newly engaged I would consider having above average intelligence, he’s a lawyer or whatever you English call them, for heaven’s sake. Do you know something that could perhaps shed light on this? 

Well, I’ve gone on and on about myself, but how are you doing? How is your family? Has your mother recovered from your brother, Bran’s, death at all? I remember you saying she was absolutely distraught and fearing for her sanity. It must have been terrible for her too lose a child, especially as he had just avoided conscription.

How is Jon? It’s been months since he got over ‘flu and pneumonia, is he back to his old self? And how is his Irish bride? Are they settled in New York? You must miss your brother, but as you said it’s for the best as they would not be accepted in England and there are probably people out for his or her blood in Ireland. 

How are Robb and Roslin? Is she recovered from her bout of ‘flu? I remember you saying that you thought she miscarried which must have hindered her recovery considerably. Are she and Robb ready to try for a baby again? (Don’t pretend to be shocked by my frankness. How many pregnant women did you see? And how many births during the quiet spells? Five that I know of and you’re too modest to mention any others.) Has he regained any of his sight? If he’s interested I know that there are schools for the blind in America where they teach Braille. Is this something you think would help him? I can make inquires.

On that note, Aunt Ashara has devoted herself to finding the women left on their own and with families to care for respectable employment as often a soldier’s pension is inadequate to their needs.

Please write soon. I want to hear all about your visit with the Lannisters and your father’s friend who thought it was a good idea to regale a young child with stories of how he caused Rhaegar Targaryen to be thrown from his horse and trampled. I don’t know what your parents were thinking to let him tell you those stories. No wonder you never wanted to go near a horse. I’m also extremely interested in how Arya finds Tommen Baratheon. I will be anxiously awaiting your reply.  
Your confidant and partner in hot chocolate,  
Allyria

ps I forgot to mention but Lady Tyrell- the grandmother, is adamant that I wear white for my wedding dress. I always thought I looked better in ivory. What do you think? I put myself in your capable hands.

October, 1919

Dear Allyria,

Congratulations! I must have spent too much time with you and Ashara because as far as I am concerned if being proposed to by the man you love isn’t cause to write in all capitals, then what is? 

Ignore Lady Olenna about what to wear; you look wonderful in ivory and white does nothing for you. I would have paid to see her dramatics because, yes that’s all they were, at your’s and Willas’s decision regarding your children. I sometimes think that the Quakers have the right idea; they believe in talking to and hearing God instead of about Him.

As far as Lady Olenna, ( if I were to be very correct she’s the Dowager Lady Tyrell and Lady Alerie is Lady Tyrell) the Tyrell were only made ennobled for some service or another under William IV and she’s a bit sensitive about that. There were rumors and still are to be honest that she wanted better than a professor’s daughter for her son. Margaery… I think Lady Olenna values ambition over almost anything else, and of all her grandchildren Margaery is the most similar. You should probably remember that.

I am so relived that you were the one to ask me about my visit as I can now write at length without feeling guilty. Sometimes I wonder just what my parents were thinking to send the two of us here alone. I understand that since losing Bran my mother is reluctant to leave her remaining children, but her not leaving Robb, let’s just say that sometimes I think Roslin wants to kill her and I can’t say that I blame her.

As of when I left Robb can distinguish between light and dark and can sometimes see colors if they are very bright and the light is very strong. I think that Robb would be willing to learn Braille, he is determined to do as much for himself as possible and Roslin supports him, something that is not always easy for her. The first time Robb walked across a room alone she was biting her lip so she would not tell him that she would help. My mother takes the opposite view. In her opinion Roslin is being a terrible wife by not hovering over him and attending to his every need and she has told Roslin this to her face numerous times. I’ll try to bring the Braille up to Robb myself as Mother can hardly be angrier at me than she is already. She blames me for Bran dying while Jon and Roslin both lived while I took care of them. She says that my time away has changed me that I would save my brother, and my father looks at me with disappointment that I let my mother down.

Allyria, I am not sure what I was supposed to have done. You were there, not at the CCS but in the town, since we were both sick in the spring, and you saw how there was nothing to do for some, how they would be fine one minute and dead in hours. I wish none of them would have died my brother or not my brother, and a some point they were all my brothers.

As far as the Lannisters, my father’s friend looks at Arya as though she is his lost love brought to life for him. I don’t care that he is my father’s oldest and dearest friend, my mother’s oldest and dearest friend who is like a brother to her (or so she thinks) thought I was his love brought to life and it did not end well for me. At the same time Father has always favored Arya and would be more likely to believe her as she would likely punch anyone who tried to touch her. So far I’ve tried to keep his attention off Arya and Arya has been very good at pretending to be a meek copy of herself but I don’t know how long that can last. 

Lord Lannister’s second son Tyrion is constantly staring at my figure. Even when I look at him he does not avert his gaze. I hate it, but what am I to do? A lady is not supposed to take notice of such things because if she draws attention from a respectable -wealthy or noble-man she must have wanted that attention, or so the gossips say. If I ask him to stop, that he makes me uncomfortable I run the risk of being sent away again as it was doing exactly that which ruined my reputation. 

Lady Cersei Baratheon, Lord Lannister’s daughter and Robert’s wife is easily the most bitter vindictive woman I have ever met. I do not understand her. She is angry that her husband compares unfavorably to my Aunt Lyanna, but what did she expect when she married him. He had just moved heaven and earth to find my aunt, why would she ever think that he would put her memory aside so easily? The worst of it is that she does not confine her anger to her husband where it belongs, but to everyone around her. Her poor daughter ties herself in knots to please her mother and barely gets a smile in return, but always a criticism. Her brother’s right hand was amputated, and she had a golden hand made to replace it. The poor man’s arm was stiff all the way to his shoulder from constantly carrying the weight, and he was all but hiding in his room because she goes out of her way to startle him and then blame him for jumping.

I realize that this is beginning to be a litany of complaints, so I’ll close as used to be our habit of finding something good. I don’t know if you know Lady Rhaella Targaryen, her son was married to Elia Martell, but after her son died in France, Robert Baretheon’s younger brother Stannis took her in. He said something along the lines that she was his grandmother’s niece and duty would not permit him to leave her to her own devices, and that was that! Well Stannis has come to visit as well, and he bought Lady Rhaella with him. She knows Lord Jaime, the older son who was wounded, from way back when and it is the sweetest thing to watch them together. He’s a proud man, but he lets this tiny woman fuss over him and mourn that he’s gotten so thin since she saw him last with a smile on his face and nods along to everything she says. It’s like watching a car purring. I’m happy for him. I don’t think he’s had much softness in his life especially the last few years.

Please write soon. I want to hear all your wedding plans in detail. Give my love to Ashara, as I’ve fallen a bit behind in my correspondence with her.  
Best wishes,  
Sansa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. Feedback is always appreciated:)


	11. XI Rhaella

   Lady Rhaella Targaryen, Dowager Countess of Summerhall, walked through the halls of Casterly Rock, a woman on a mission. Her lovely not-quite-granddaughter, Shireen, was in dire need of a change of wardrobe. What was adequate for a girl was most definitely not suitable for a young lady. Stannis had done a fine job as a father, but Shireen needed a woman’s touch. Selyse had meant well, and Rhaella would not speak ill of the dead, but some of her guidance such as, ‘I suppose you can use paint,’ was rather less than helpful. Whether or not she decided to attend the College of Physicians- and wasn’t it wonderful what women were able to do these days?-  Shireen needed to dress her age. Hopefully, if all went well, Shireen would acquire some confidence in her appearance in the process.  

 

   Which led Rhaella to her current objective: even as a young debutante Lady Sansa Stark was known for her impeccable taste, and from what Rhaella had seen of the woman so far it still held. Sansa Stark was probably the only woman who deliberately dressed to blend into the wall and yet never looked dowdy; and wouldn’t it be interesting to see how Sansa would look if she decided to stop approximating a nun, all in gray. Really, Rhaella thought, she could not have found a better consultant if she had sat down and written a list.

 

   Equally important to Rhaella however, was Sansa herself. The war had taken a terrible toll on her beautiful boy, and not just his hand. Seeing Jaime had been like seeing a ghost, albeit a living one. (She will not, she refuses to use the words ‘living corpse’. Not for her Jaime who could have been killed at any time.) The only time she has seen him bright-eyed was when he would talk about the Stark sisters, or more particularly the older one. Lady Sansa played piano, his father had given Lady Sana permission to play his mother’s piano whenever she wished, (Rhaella made a mental note to have a chat with the wily old lion) Lady Sansa’s friend, Allyria, Arthur Dayne’s daughter was getting married to Willas Tyrell and she was so happy for her friend, Lady Sansa was an army nurse in France, Lady Sansa loved reading aloud and she always asked him what he thought. Lady Sansa this, Lady Sansa that, and without ever realizing what he was saying. It was all quite adorable, really.

 

   Entering the library, she was met by the sight of Arya Stark and Tommen Baratheon in an intense discussion with their heads bent close together over a piece of paper, alternately scribbling and crossing out the scribbles, Shireen bent over _Gray’s Anatomy_ as though she didn’t have the book practically memorized, and Sansa Stark playing her old friend’s piano with Jaime sitting just shy of touching her arm. Rhaella felt a shiver go down spine as she recognized the melody. Sansa was playing “The Rains of Castamere”, but not as Rhaella had ever heard the old song played. This was not a victory march; this was the rains weeping, a lament for the dead.

 

   “I’m sorry,” she heard Sansa say. “I’ve been playing nothing but sad songs all day.”

 

   “You play beautifully Lady Sansa,” and Sansa looks at him from under raised brows, “even if the songs are sad.”

 

   “I suppose it’s only to be expected since I’ve been dreaming more than sleeping recently.” Sansa ran her fingers over the keys. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to trouble you.”

 

   “Lady Sansa,” she can hear Jaime hesitate, “someone once told me that often troubles are made smaller in the sharing and,” only to have Sansa give a choked little giggle.

 

   “Lord Jaime,” Sansa said incredulously, “are you quoting Lucie Dayne?”

 

   “I always thought that was Arthur’s line.”

 

   “Maybe it was, but it was Lucie’s first. And now it’s their daughter’s.”

 

   “Allyria?”

 

   “Allyria. She wasn’t everyone’s favorite because of how she looked. Although,” Sansa continued thoughtfully, “it probably didn’t hurt.”

 

   “You’re doing it again,” Jaime said slightly accusingly.

 

   “What?”

 

   “Distracting me. Steering the conversation away from yourself. Did you think I don’t notice?”

 

   “I just, I thought, I didn’t want you to feel obligated to listen to me, Lord Jaime.”

 

   “Lady Sansa,” Jaime says heatedly, “I don’t play games.” Then more gently, “Would you tell me what keeps you from sleeping?”

 

   “My friends,” Sansa says in a near whisper. “Last October.  Meg, Ella, Beth and Jenny. Meg would go into the village, watch the baker’s children and come back with her arms full of freshly baked bread. Ella wanted to study to be a midwife. Beth and I would pick nits out of each other’s hair. Jenny used to sing with me. I helped bury all of them. I washed their bodies and I wrote letters to their parents.”

 

   There is a very respectful silence. Sansa is looking down, unseeing, at the piano keys. Jaime’s right arm jerks slightly in his sling, as though he wants to move his hand.

 

   “Shall I play you one of Jenny’s songs?” Sansa finally asks.

 

   “If you wish it, I would be honored,” Jaime answered in much the same tone as when he had offered to carry her basket after a particularly bad morning with Aerys.

 

   Sansa starts playing again, humming slightly, and Rhaella reminds herself sternly of her objective and clears her throat.

 

   “Hello, Jaime,” one of the benefits of growing old was the ability to disregard society’s dictates as far as forms of address went, “could you introduce me to your companion?”

 

   Both of them stood, Sansa’s face smooth, and Jaime almost looking like when he had kept her company in her garden all those years ago.

 

   “Lady Rhaella,” Jaime said, not realizing that he sounded exactly like Arthur had when he had introduced his wife, “this is Lady Sansa Stark.”

 

   “Lady Targaryen,” Sansa begins.

 

   “I haven’t been Lady Targaryen for quite some time,” she does not count Stannis who is a stickler for proper forms of address. “Please call me Lady Rhaella.”

 

   “Lady Rhaella,” Sansa starts again. “I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but I cared for your son, Viserys, briefly before he died.”

 

   “Was he in a terrible amount of pain?” that had been what kept her awake at night.

 

   “Septicemia, ah blood poisoning, is not the easiest death,” Sansa says carefully, “but believe me Lady Rhaella that it is far from the worst way to die. I would know.”

 

   “Thank you, dear, for telling me. You’re very brave.” Rhaella says acknowledging the courage she had shown to approach a grieving mother and speak to her honestly of her son’s death. “I was wondering if I could ask for your assistance in another matter, however.”

 

   “Another matter?”

 

   “Yes. My cousin, Shireen” who isn’t really a cousin, but close enough, “can use some fashion advice. I’m not so old that I don’t remember being appalled at the idea of my grandmother telling me what she thought I should wear. I would be grateful for a younger eye.”

 

   “But of course, Lady Rhaella. I would be delighted.” Sansa says looking as animated as she had ever seen.

 

   “Excellent. Shireen,” Rhaella calls, “put the book down and come over. You’re excused, Jaime,” she adds, not wanting to subject him to what is bound to be a very feminine discussion. To her surprise and secret delight, he doesn’t go far.

 

   “Miss Baratheon, your cousin said you would like to discuss clothing?” Sansa says as she looks Shireen over, her eyes barely lingering on the flawed vaccination scar that spreads across her right cheekbone.

 

   “Oh, please Lady Sansa, call me Shireen.” Would you look at that? Apparently Rhaella’s been a bad influence.

 

   “Then you must call me Sansa. Is there anything in particular you would like to start with?”

 

   “Well,” Shireen says somewhat hesitantly, “I hope to attend the Women’s College of Physicians. I would like not to look so plain that I feel invisible.”

 

   “That won’t be at all difficult. Would you step into the light?” Sansa asks with a smile. “That way I can see what colors I think would look best on you.”

 

   With a quick glance at Rhaella, Shireen steps forward while Sansa walks around her humming occasionally.

 

   “Do you like that shade of green?” Sansa finally asks.

 

   Shireen shrugged. “Not really, why?”

 

   “Because that is one shade you should never wear,” Sansa says without a trace of doubt. “You need warm colors to go with your hair and complexion. That,” she gestures at the shirt, “makes you look ill.”

 

   “And my face,” Shireen plunges on before she loses her nerve. “I suppose I should learn to use paint.”

 

   “Cosmetics? Shireen if that is something you want I could teach you, but it isn’t something I would advise. Maybe darkening your lashes and a little color on your lips.”

 

   “But,” Shireen says, gesturing to her face.

 

   “Yes, it’s a vaccination scar, isn’t it? I have one myself on my upper arm. Whoever vaccinated you did a terrible job.”

 

   “I was a toddler,” Shireen says repeating a story she has been told many times. “There was a smallpox outbreak nearby. The doctor was nervous, and I wouldn’t stay still.”

 

   “I see,” Sansa says briskly. “May I suggest that you draw attention away from your face? You have lovely dark hair, and if you were to put an ornament a little behind and above your right ear, people’s eyes would be drawn away from your scar.”

 

   Shireen looks intrigued, and to be honest Rhaella is also. Who would have thought that the solution would be so simple? Draw people’s attention to a hair ornament in place of her face, it’s elegant in it’s simplicity. Stannis will undoubtedly approve after muttering through his teeth that people are idiots, and what is a single scar in the face of death or severe disfigurement.

 

   “Lady Sansa,” West interrupts politely, in a feat unique to butlers. “Your mother is on the telephone.”

 

   “Excuse me,” Sansa says with a puzzled frown. “I had best answer that,” and leaves the room with Jaime’s eyes following her the whole way.

 

   Not five minutes later, Sansa stepped back into the library and headed towards her sister. Rhaella couldn’t hear what was said, but it was rather obvious that Arya wasn’t happy. Finally, Arya left and Sansa turned back to Rhaella and Shireen.

 

   “I’m so sorry,” she said apologetically, “but I’m apparently needed at home. If we leave now my sister and I can catch the next train.”

 

   “You’re leaving?” without Rhaella noticing Jaime has drawn closer to Sansa.

 

   “Yes, but I should be back soon.”

 

   Jaime looks bereft, as though he is unable to believe her.

 

   “Lord Jaime,” Sansa steps closer and actually takes his hands, both the maimed and the whole in hers. “I’m coming back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The "Rains of Castemere" that Sansa plays is similar to Peter Hollens and Taylor Davis version on Youtube. Jenny's song is Methyl and Gwyn from "Poldark" and is available on Youtube as the original and as a piano cover.  
> Thoughts anyone?


	12. XII Arya

   Arya paced outside the library and fumed. Quick trip home indeed, she and Sansa had been here a little over two _weeks_. Of course, _she_ wasn’t supposed to be home, no, _she_ was still supposed to be at Casterly Rock charming Tommen Baratheon. (And just why it was acceptable for her to charm Tommen while Sansa was criticized for so much as approaching a man was something she will never understand.) Just what were Father and Sansa talking about anyway? Frowning Arya thought back to her conversation with Sansa just this morning.

 _In the two weeks since Sansa had been summoned home with no explanation Arya had found herself in the somewhat odd position of looking out for her older sister. It had not escaped her notice that almost as soon as the two had set foot back into Winterfell that Sansa had seemed to shrink into herself. Sansa was more guarded with her speech, more reserved in her demeanor around her own family, or her parents to be more precise, than she had been among strangers. It was difficult to imagine the Sansa of Winterfell shooting Cersei Baratheon down in metaphorical flames, giving orders to Tyrion Lannister in his own house or even laughing to herself as she read an old friend’s letter. It was enough to make Arya feel simultaneously furious at their parents because oh yes, she had heard what had happened after Bran had died and profoundly sorry for them. Her mother’s broken gutted cries still echoed in her memory. Which was why despite the unholy hours Sansa kept-_ why _did her sister wake up every morning with the birds?- she came in every morning not only to remind Sansa that Baelish’s actions were no fault of hers, but also to give Sansa a chance to not be caught in the middle of Mother and Roslin (For the record Arya was on Roslin’s side) and this morning talk of the Rodent had turned to talk of Sansa’s almost betrothed._

_“Were you in love with him?” she asked, “After everything you heard?”_

_“Yes,” Sansa answered followed immediately by, “No, it was just… I knew Father was set on the match, for he and Lord Baratheon to be truly family especially because he and Lyanna, didn’t. I thought, well, I thought that even though Joffery and I wouldn’t be love match, I could at least love my husband. So I ignored all the gossip about him, I told myself that he would change once we were married, that he was just sowing wild oats, and I looked for something I could admire about him.”_

_She couldn’t help but give a very unladylike snort. Sansa looked at her with a wry grin tugging at her mouth._

_“Well, he was well off and he didn’t seem inclined to gamble away his fortune and very handsome,” her grin faded. “All those girls; they called him the devil with the face of an angel.”_

_“You knew about them?” because Sansa was several things at that age that Arya had loathed. Slightly self-centered, obsessed with the latest fashions and gowns and dreaming about marriage to the exclusion of everything else, but she did not have a truly cruel bone in her body._

_“Not really,” Sansa said. “Oh, I heard there were incidents with housemaids, but nothing too far out of the common run. When I was in France though, it was different. There were all these young girls, I don’t think any were older than seventeen and they would be all but dressed in bruises.”_

_“And then what happened?” Arya felt sick._

_“I gave them aspirin.”_

_“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” she demanded. “Why didn’t you make him stop?”_

_“Make him stop?” Sansa parroted bitterly, “most if not all of them had agreed to some form of favor in exchange for money and he was an officer and a_ gentleman _,” there is enough acid in Sansa’s voice to dissolve a tank, “why would anyone have believed him capable of such an act? I tried, but after the first time when what I said was dismissed out of hand I didn’t try again. I kept hoping he’d die on his next flight mission and save everyone a lot of grief except whoever would have had to write to his family that he died a hero.”_

_“Arya, you have to understand,” Sansa continued. “I was shunned because a man had touched my hair and it was assumed that I had encouraged his attentions. Any woman, particularly a poorer woman, who was associated with a soldier was all but considered a prostitute unless she had clearly been raped and not paid. No one would take her side.”_

_Arya growled quietly, but not quietly enough._

_“Not all men are like that Arya,” Sansa said, “Most men would never think of doing something like that if only because they are brought up to believe that woman should be protected.”_

_And that’s the root of her problem isn’t it? Her parents had kept her_ safe _as they thought it, or_ caged _as she thinks it. Her mother tried to mold her like an old-fashioned corset, and her father let her slip her leash- riding astride, turning a blind eye to Jon teaching her to shoot-, but only so long as no one else was disturbed. Not for all her pleading would he engage a governess or a tutor in advanced mathematics never mind allow her to attend a women’s college._

   Still in the process of reviewing their conversation for anything that might explain what Sansa could have talking to their father about, she was surprised to hear Sansa’s light, fast footsteps behind.  Turning to ask if they were finally returning to the Rock she was unpleasantly surprised by her sister’s very bright eyes.

   “Arya,” Sansa took a quick deep breath before she spoke, “You’re to return to the Rock with Mother and Father on the morning train tomorrow.” She pauses to take another quick breath. “I’ll be staying here.”

   Abruptly she realizes that Sansa is on the verge of tears, and Sansa no longer cries.

   “Can you do me a favor?” Sansa continues breathlessly. “Please tell Lord Jaime that I’m sorry, that I meant to come back with you, but I can’t and it isn’t because I didn’t want to.”

   With a supreme effort, an unexpected by-product of hours of tedious knitting, Arya keeps her reply to: “Is there anything else I should tell him?” because Arya may not have a romantic bone in her body, but once Tommen had pointed out Sansa’s and Jaime’s interactions a blind man could see the two had feelings for each other beside politeness.

   “Should there be?” and Sansa’s eyes are so guileless, so entirely innocent that Arya realizes her perceptive, intuitive sister has somehow managed to utterly delude herself. Damn.

   “No,” she manages, biting back, ‘Jaime looks at you like you hung the moon, he’s the only man you spend time of your own volition, and if the two of you keep this up Tywin Lannister may actually smile,”.

   “Thank you, “Sansa says, eyes still glittering. “Can you please tell him as soon as you can? I don’t want him to think I forgot about him.”

   This is almost painful. “Of course,” she says before stalking off to find her older brother. Robb is Sansa’s mirror as Jon has always been hers and Roslin owes Sansa for taking her to visit every farmer and shopkeeper for tea, if for nothing else.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any thoughts?


	13. XIII Sansa

     _Sansa dreams. She is walking through a field of grass tall enough to brush against her hands, although in the odd way of dreams she is able to walk without any difficulty almost as though she is floating. Far away she hears thunder._

_She hears water running through pipes and she is inside a long narrow room with beds lining each wall. The beds are a pristine white, and she wonders at that because the sheets never stay so white and the blankets are supposed to be a green-gray._

_The figures on the bed are all motionless and she rushes franticly from one bed to the next, her fingers on their throats, desperately seeking and failing to find a heartbeat. Dead, they are all dead._

_She presses two fingers to the man in the last bed, and her own heart skips a beat. There’s a pulse under her fingers, weak and far too fast, but she can feel a pulse!_

_“You came,” who is this man? When did she lose her headcloth? She can feel her braid hanging over her shoulder, feel where wisps of hair have worked their way free against her face and neck. “You came,” her eyes are drawn down and she sees that his right arm ends above his wrist although he moves his arm as though still expecting a hand to follow._

_Oh God. She blinks and she can see the man’s face, his terrifyingly joyful eyes. She knows that look, has seen it too many times to count. She screams, but as usual the scream gets caught in her throat and comes out a whisper._

_“No.” Please no, please, please, please. She can feel her own heart beating, a caged, frantic bird. No, no, no._

_“I was starting to think you wouldn’t come,” he sounds so_ happy, _“but I knew you would. You promised.”_

_Yes. She had. She had promised to come back._

_“You came,” he says again, his right arm still moving restlessly and on an impulse, she reaches her own hand out wrapping her fingers around what remains, rubbing her thumb in soothing circles over the scarred stump, all the time feeling his weak thread pulse._

_“Yes.”_

_“Please don’t go,” he whispers so quietly she can barely hear. “I don’t want to be alone.”_

_“Jaime,” her voice cracks. “Jaime,”_

   Sansa’s eyes fly open. She is no stranger to nightmares, for all the fears that she ignores during the day to attack her while she sleeps. She has dreamt of her brothers with their bodies dripping red and streaked with dirt, of her friends coughing with their faces slowly turning blue, of Petyr Baelish not stopping at a kiss, and most recently on her worst nights, of Robert Baratheon in Baelish’s place and Arya in hers, but never this. Never of anyone who looked at her like that.

   Still in the pre-dawn darkness she dresses herself; sweater and skirt, and sticks pins in her hair randomly. She has become an accepted figure among the staff downstairs, sitting alone with her hands wrapped around a mug of tea, and she will be gone when the maids sit for their breakfast. It may be cowardly of her, but she cannot bring herself to ask her father to accompany them to the Rock again. She will beg, but she will be refused.

   Later, after Arya and her parents have left and given her instructions to keep an eye on Robb and not let him overexert himself-she refrains from snapping that he’s blind, not an invalid- she picks up her embroidery. Sewing has always been soothing for her, the needle sliding in and out of the fabric leaving a small patch roughened skin on her second finger from constant small needle pricks, watching a pattern form on previously blank fabric. In and out, in and out her needle goes, and she thinks.

   The problem is that she sees too many sides of an argument. Her mother can be overbearing, can insist on perfect behavior, but she knows what is behind it. Her mother’s uncle has made no secret of his desire for Home Rule for Ireland, his sister-in-law’s homeland and her mother had spent her life trying to ensure that no one would make the connection and look down upon her family. Catelyn Tully had spent her youth under the shadow of her uncle’s reputation as the black-sheep of the family and was determined that her children would not. And her father, her father had his own story. Perhaps she should not have told her father about Lady Rhaella, how much she missed her grandchildren, how she would be overjoyed to find a lost grandson no matter the details of his birth. In any event Ned Stark had refused to hear of it and had told her to never repeat such a slander of her Aunt. Sansa had wanted to shriek with frustration at his stubbornness and misplaced priorities. Was preserving his sister’s reputation in death more important than the strain he had put on his marriage? Was it so important to shield Robert Baratheon’s feelings?

   “Sansa,” Robb’s voice pulled her out of her thoughts. He had taken advange of their mother’s absence to make his way into the sitting room alone with Roslin staying just close enough to let him know if he was about to walk into someone.

   “I’m here,” Sansa said, standing up. “Turn to your right and take five or six steps.” It was at times like this that Sansa was very grateful for her long legs; it let her give accurate descriptions of distances to Robb without constantly calculating the difference in stride length. “Now a short step back and sit down.”

   Gingerly, Robb lowered himself to the couch, looking pleased as could be when he judged the distance correctly. Roslin waited until he was sitting and then sat next to him.

   “So,” Robb began, “last night Arya paid Roslin and I a visit. I must admit, I wonder if she thought I wouldn’t have realized that you were in the house, but that’s beside the point. Do you have any idea what made Mother summon you home? Aside from Roslin being irresponsible of course.” Robb grinned as Roslin rolled her eyes.

   “It was only a short walk on grounds you knew since you started walking.”

   “Apparently, Lady Baratheon telephoned. She said that she was worried that my forwardness would land me in trouble, and that her brother couldn’t take his eyes off me,” and that had burned. Why would her parents always believe the worst of her? Why would a stranger’s words always be taken over hers? And why was it her fault that Lord Tyrion couldn’t keep his eyes on her face?

   “And they believed her,” Robb said flatly. “Why is it that the blind man can see a spot a troublemaker and the seeing can’t?”

   “You don’t think I behaved inappropriately?” Sansa said in disbelief.

   “Please. I never understood why men feel free to stare at a women’s ah, assets, unless she is posing for cheap sketch, or tugs her neckline down.” Roslin snorts. “Well, I didn’t. And even if I did you’ve never been anything but perfectly lady-like since I can remember.” Not that it did her any good.

   “Anyway,” Roslin continued with more than a hint of mischief, “Robb and I have decided that we will be paying the Lord Lannister a visit as well. Naturally we’d prefer to travel just us two, so we’ve purchased a train ticket for you, since you very sensibly keep your money in a bank. I’m afraid it’s one of those local trains that stop in every town and village, but you should be at the Rock before dinner. I took the liberty of packing a carpetbag for you,” she pulled one out from who knows where, “and we’ll take the rest of your clothes with us.”

   “I don’t know what to say.” In her wildest dreams she wouldn’t have thought that Robb would not only whole-heartedly believe her, but also go so far as to directly aid her in going against their parents’ express wishes.

   “Good-by would be good,” Roslin said producing a beret, coat, gloves and purse. “Your ticket and some money is inside. I’m driving you to the station.”

   “Thank-you,” Sansa said instead. “Thank-you, thank you, thank you!”

   Sitting on the train which as Roslin had said stopped in every town and village, Sansa had more than enough time to consider what had been bothering her, namely, why Cersei wanted her gone. Try as she might, Sansa could not see why Cersei would actively seek to sabotage her own brother. What was in it for her?

   Thinking of Jaime and her dream she could not help but worry. He had put a good face on, but she could clearly see the cracks under it, and how he looked when she said she was leaving. Lady Rhaella was with him though. Surely he would be alright?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any thoughts?


	14. XIV Jaime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's been some confusion as to the nature of Jaime and Cersei's relationship, and who's the father of her children. In this story Jaime and Cersei have never been in a sexual relationship for several reasons. It's up to you as to fathered the children; Robert and Cersei are both cheating on each other . They all have blond hair so it's either the recessive gene from Robert's grandmother, or Cersei had a blond lover at the time.

   Sansa had been gone for over two weeks, and Jaime felt her absence as profoundly as he felt the loss of his right hand. Without someone to talk with, without someone to confide in, without _Sansa_ , he began to withdraw into himself. He was not being overlooked by everyone at home exactly, but it was not the same. Lady Rhaella was her warm and caring self and never gave the impression of being annoyed by him, but he couldn’t see how she wouldn’t be. Poor Sansa had been conscripted into acting as her sister’s chaperone and no doubt would have been grateful to talk to anyone, but Lady Rhaella had other matters to attend to occupy her time.

   Even if that had not been the case talking to her would be very different than talking with Sansa. As Cersei had always told him, he did not have a way with words, he would sometimes talk without thinking about how stupid he sounded; and he did not think he could explain that being in a pitched battle was not the worst thing that had happened to him. The worst was the waiting, the never-ending timelessness of the trenches where they hunted rats in the half-light. The worst was the constant booming echoes of the artillery barrages, the clatter as the walls shook, seeing someone you had fought with blown apart in front of you and not feeling much of anything until you were on your two-week reserve duty behind the lines when everything caught up with you just before you headed back to the front and had to push it all down again. More than that how exactly could he say that some of his best memories were from the worst years of his life? Spending wet, miserable nights cracking jokes back and forth, laughing with the locals as everyone tried to make themselves understood through ever more ridiculous gestures. And how was he to explain how much simple things had mattered? Coming back from a patrol with everyone intact, the feeling of accomplishment when his men completed a grueling march and he was able to have a hot meal waiting for them, or even the almost hedonistic luxury of a hot bath. How was he to even begin to describe all of it without sounding like a simpleton or a madman?

   He had such a sense of freedom when he talked with Sansa because Sansa understood. Sansa who would giggle like a schoolgirl when she told him about how she and her friends got lost in Paris and found themselves in a discrete officer’s club when they tried to find someone who could give them directions, and how the officers had scraped their feet on the ground sheepishly when they realized that the women they were trying to flirt with were actually Army Nurses. Sansa whose eyes would grow dark and shuttered when she explained how she was never afraid of being shelled because she was always to busy too notice and then would be too tired to do anything but collapse on her cot and sleep as long as she could. Sansa who would smile as she recounted how she and the nurses socialized over picking nits from each other’s hair like other woman socialized over tea, and their competitions over who could mend the most sheets and uniforms.  Sansa who blinked back tears when she thought about her friends. Sansa who reminisced over wrapping her cold hands around enamel mugs of hot tea and the double treat of being clean from head to foot and soaking her whole body in hot water. Sansa who had woven herself into his existence subtle as the music she played.

   “Uncle Jaime?” he looked up to find Tommen looking at him worriedly. “Are you alright?”

   “Of course,” the answer comes automatically as he tries to smile. He must not have been particularly successful because Tommen didn’t look convinced.

  “Uncle,” Tommen starts before he hears Cersei berating Myrcella for some imperfection or another. He sighs, “I should try to calm Mother,” in the tone of someone who knows that his efforts will come to nothing but is determined to at least try. “I’ll be back.”

   _“I’m coming back. Lord Jaime, I’m coming back.”_ He can still hear Sansa as she took his bare hands, the whole and the broken, in her own, but after several days when he had not heard from her even by letter, he began to wonder if he had misunderstood. Of course Sansa wouldn’t come back to see him; she was being kind and reassuring him that she wouldn’t be yet another person who left and never returned.

   Still, he could understand why Tommen looked so worried. The day after Sansa left both his sling and his spare went missing leaving his false hand unsupported. One day when the weight had gotten to be too much he had tried to go without it only to have Cersei hiss at him that he was ruining any chance of a good marriage for her children and how could he be so selfish. With the colder weather and his shoulder and arm tense and knotted from keeping his hand which had somehow seemed heavier than it had been before from appearing to be dead weight, the phantom pain in his hand had increased with the constant pain in his arm. He had grown used to lying awake for hours as he waited for the pain to subside, to reliving the sickening cracks as his hand shattered in his dreams, to the now constant lightheadedness from when the pain had nauseated him enough that he couldn’t bring himself to eat.

   Tommen had the knack of being quiet enough that people forgot he was there unless he wanted to be noticed, but that didn’t mean he was blind. Tommen also had quite enough to deal with though, without Jaime’s tale of woe. Between running around trying to smooth over Cersei’s thinly veiled insults to Shireen, between assuring Myrcellla that Mother was under a lot of pressure and didn’t mean what she said and yes Myrcella wasn’t a disgrace, between some new project and moping over Arya Stark, Tommen had a lot on his plate.

   As Jaime decided to make his way to his own room, where he could take his temporarily take his prosthetic off in private in an attempt to alleviate the excruciating pain in his arm, he heard the front door open and Cersei exclaim, “Lady Stark,” in surprise and changed his mind and headed for the front hall with his heart in his throat at the thought of seeing Sansa; only to see her sister with her face like a thundercloud look at him apologetically, sending him back into the mercifully empty library where he berated himself over and over for being so stupid as to think Sansa would come back. Of course she wouldn’t when her parents could act as chaperones. What was there for her to return to? Oh, Cersei had been right when she called him the stupidest Lannister, when she said it was a joke that he was the heir. Even Tyrion had muttered about how if their Father had any sense he would designate Tyrion as his heir, although he was always kind enough to say that Jaime’s looks were more than a consolation. And now where was he, with a missing hand and looking as though he had aged ten years instead of the three that he had spent at war? Slowly Jaime undid the straps that attached his hand to his arm, roughly pulling the gold hand off.

   “Hiding Brother?” Cersei had evidently finished greeting the Starks and settling them in. How long had he stood there? A half-hour? More? “Have you been _crying_?”

   Had he been? He couldn’t remember, but he felt liquid slowly sliding down his face.

   “My God you’re pathetic,” Cersei spat. “Do you really not care that you’re ruining any chance for Tommen or Myrcella to make an even somewhat decent match? You’re not even trying to hide that you were stupid enough to believe the surgeon when he said you would keep your hand, and you’re _crying_ like a _little girl_.”

   “Is it because the Arya Stark returned without her disgraced sister?” he whirls sharply to face her then shrinks back at the mocking scorn on her face. “My sweet, simple brother. Did you really fool yourself into believing that she would come back, when she had the choice not to? Did you think she would ever even look at you, when she could have someone else? Look at me!” Cersei screamed, throwing the closest object, which happened to be a glass clock just to the right of his head.

   It is too much; the air whistling past his face, the crash as the clock smashed against the wall, instinctively raising his arm to shield himself only for too tight muscles to scream in protest at the sudden move, and to his shame he collapses to the floor, shaking from memories that surge to the forefront of his mind, breathing in ragged gasps. Far away he hears Cersei screaming at him to man up, to pull himself together, to not be such a failure; but all he can concentrate on was breathing because he could not get enough air in his lungs, he was going to faint, he would never be able to look anyone in the eyes again. And then somehow the screaming stopped and there was only his desperate, gasping breaths and a warm, dark fuzziness waiting for him.

   Humming. He heard someone humming on the floor near him, and cool fingers, very gentle on his arm and hand.

   “You’re safe,” the soft voice croons. “Breath deeply, you’re safe,” and all the while there are light, soothing touches on his hand and arm. He tries, and manages some deep, shuddering breaths while the humming turns to singing. _‘Jenny’s song,”_ his mind supplies. ‘ _Shall I play you one of Jenny’s songs?’_ Sansa asks. _Sansa._

   He blinks, and there she is like a vision, or a dream. But her coat is still on even if it’s unbuttoned, her beret and gloves are on the floor as though she has thrown carelessly thrown them off, her face is pink with cold with rain beading on her eyelashes, and he doesn’t think he would dream her like this. Just to make sure, he starts to stand up; except the room starts spinning as it sometimes has recently ,his legs to buckle under him; and he collapses again only this time there are strong hands, very gentle to stop his fall.

   _Sansa._ She is looking at him with her beautiful, liquid eyes that pierce his soul, still holding his hands.

   “You came back,” he whispers, not quite believing it.  “ _You came back.”_

   And she smiles shakily, “Yes,”.   

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From my hiding place behind the couch- how was it?


	15. XV Sansa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Important- I've made some significant revisions to the second chapter-Tyrion as of Dec. 25th 2017. It's not necessary for the overall plot, but it does give a better understanding of some of Tyrion's motives.

 

“You came back, _”_ Jaime whispers wonderingly as though he does not trust his eyes. “ _You came back.”_

   “Yes,” Sansa thinks she should smile, thinks she should be reassuring; but she cannot quite manage it. She has not entirely recovered from walking into the house only to have Arya drag her by the arm to the library where she had found Jaime trembling on the floor surrounded by glass shards. For one absolutely heart stopping moment she had thought that ‘flu had come back to claim yet another victim. Then she realized that the source of the noise was only Cersei Baratheon shrieking at her brother like a harridan, and had thrown her out. Bodily. And locked the door behind the viscous bitch for good measure before using every skill she had to coax Jaime back into the present. Nor has she forgotten how he had swayed like a birch tree in a good wind when he tried, unsuccessfully, to stand. With a sigh she lets go of Jaime’s hands and pulls off her coat.

   It was absolutely the wrong thing to do. The moment she had pulled back even slightly to wiggle her arms out of the sleeves Jaime’s eyes had widened and he had started shaking and breathing in panicked gasps all over again.

   “I’m not leaving,” somehow, she keeps her voice low and even as she yanks her coat off and uses it to cover the shards of glass. It’s a minor miracle that she doesn’t need to pull glass splinters from his skin, and she’s not taking chances. “I’m not leaving,” she takes both his arm and hand in hers again, notices the tell-tale marks on the right forearm that show where something heavy was anchored, the lack of any semblance of a sling. “Open your eyes, and look at me. _I’m not leaving_.”

   The physical contact seems to help more than anything because as soon as she takes his hands the worst of it stops, and they are back to where they were before she had taken her coat off.

   Well then. Never letting go of Jaime’s hands Sansa starts humming again, the songs she played on the piano, the songs she learned from the nurses, the songs she heard in church. She has just cycled back to the one Jenny taught her, the one she had started with, when she hears Jaime take a deep breath without stuttering over it. At the same time, he seems to realize where they are and why. She can see the moment he grasps all of the implications of their odd situation, the way his eyes dart away from her and to the floor, the way he ever so slightly curls into himself as though waiting for censure.

   “Could we sit on the sofa perhaps?” she suggests lightly, as though they have just walked into the room and have not been sitting on the floor for the better part of an hour. Still not looking at her, he quickly nods his head and Sansa gets to her feet as smoothly as possible. As she forces herself not to offer Jaime any help in standing she has a renewed appreciation for Roslin who is forever leaving nail marks on her palms from every time she holds back from helping Robb.  In any event they reach the nearest sofa without any incident, but it’s at a much slower pace than it should be and she notices how Jaime’s eyes close the moment he sits, how he holds his right arm gingerly in his left.

   “All right,” she says once he seems somewhat settled. “I’ll go and find,” but his head jerks up and his eyes widen. No, he is not to be left. “I’ll ring for a maid,” she says instead. “I’ll only be as far as the door.”

   When she unlocks the door, and pokes her head out cautiously she is met by the welcome sight of Arya, looking as though she is an inch away from driving one of her knitting needles into someone’s jugular.

   “Can you find the maid, Rose, and ask her to come here?” Sansa asks quietly. Arya gives a tight nod and leaves, but not before placing a piece of paper in her hand. While she waits for them to return she opens it and reads:

   T says J’s slings have gone missing, thinks his mother’s been startling him. Also says been barely picking at food. T apologized. I told him not to be an idiot. Ps. Leave the dratted hand in the library. I’ll take care of it.

   Sansa feels a small smile tug at her mouth at the thought of what exactly Arya considers “taking care of it” to be, especially if Tommen was helping. Just then Arya returned with Rose in tow. “On the table by the window,” she whispers to Arya, before turning to Rose and closing the door behind them.

   “It’s Rose isn’t it?” Sansa starts trying to put the obviously petrified maid at ease. After reading Arya’s note she had no doubt as to how the slings had disappeared. The poor woman probably thought she’d lose her job if she wouldn’t cooperate.

   “Yes, milady,” Rose whispers, studiously avoiding looking at her or at Jaime.

   “Have you been here some time?’ a short nod. “Excellent. Can you show us how to get upstairs without being seen?” There’s a very long moment when Rose looks at her, at Jaime, nervously behind her back, and then meets her gaze.

   “This way, milady,” Rose finally says moving to a partially concealed door. “If you’ll just follow me.”

   “Thank you,” Sansa smiles and walks over to the sofa where she takes Jaime’s hands again and tugs slightly. She sees his eyes fly to the door and shakes her head. “We’re not going that way.”

   “How?” his voice trails off, but he forces himself up, and now, with him somewhat settled and them having a way to his room without exposing him to every gossiping idiot on the way, she allows herself to feel the first cold sparks of rage. As the three of them slowly make their way upstairs through narrow back hallways, as Rose constantly looks over her shoulder to make sure no one’s watching, as Jaime leans on the wall to remain upright, she quietly seethes. Pokey local trains, are, as it turns out, excellent opportunities to sit and think, to sort through dozens of interactions, pieces of gossip, bits of overheard conversations and string them into a coherent whole.

   When they finally reach his room, she whispers for Rose to stand outside the door to the main hallway in case she needs anything. Once the two of them are inside Jaime all but collapses on the bed, clearly worn out and Sansa reluctantly decides that in this case sleep will come before food. It’s just as well that she will not need to stay and talk, she can feel her fury inside her body as a living thing, blanketing itself over her shoulders and back and catching in her throat.

   “Stay here,” she says curtly to Rose as soon as she is certain that Jaime sleeps. “If he wakes I expect to be summoned,” and heads down the stairs and into the dining hall.

   She is aware that she is breaking every rule of polite society, but some things can’t be helped. She may not have intended to have her next meeting with Cersei Baratheon in front of a room full of witnesses, but on second thought it may be best.

   “I’m surprised to see you,” Cersei smiles, dripping honey over arsenic. “I would have thought you’d be too responsible to leave my brother alone.”

   “He seems fine,” out of the corner of her eye she sees Robb choke slightly. He always did know her tells.

   “Thank you. It’s very kind of you to put such a good face on things, but really, it’s quite unnecessary. We’re all friends and family here.” Good grief, who does the woman think she’s fooling? “Nobody will leave carrying tales about my brother’s ineptitude, his uselessness.”

  At the head of the table Lord Lannister seems to be on the verge of ordering his daughter to leave the room, but Sansa speaks first. She does not blame the maids for taking the slings. She does not blame Tommen because it was not his responsibility to watch his mother every minute, and really, he had tried. She does blame Lord Lannister. How difficult would it have been to ensure that the monstrosity of a hand was lost too?

   “I see,” Sansa is very quiet. Her choking rage from earlier has settled deep in her bones like the icy cold of winters spent in freezing dormitories, where they slept shivering under layers of sweaters and men’s flannel trousers. “You want people to think that, don’t you? That your brother is unfit to inherit?”

   “I had a lot of time to think on the train,” she continues as though they are merely discussing which flowers should be used to decorate the table, “but I still couldn’t understand what you thought to gain. And then I remembered something that Arya said. She said,” Sansa pauses to make sure she has everyone’s attention, “she said that you had told your son Tommen to behave in a manner befitting the future heir of Storm’s End and Casterly Rock. And then everything made sense.”

   “It’s difficult isn’t it, being a woman? Our brothers can do things we can only dream of not because they are smarter or more capable than we are, but because they are men. You could have inherited the Rock as the firstborn; but alas you’re a woman, and by law it goes to your brother. Your _younger_ brother to be precise. Who is somehow despite being titled and wealthy, unmarried and with no heir of his own. Your father won’t live forever, and when he dies, well you have it planned out, don’t you? By then you’ll have spread enough rumors, done enough damage that you’ll be able to have your brother institutionalized, _for his own good_ , of course. The estate would normally go to Lord Tyrion, but you probably have something in place to sidestep that as well. So who’s left to inherit but your son? Officially Lord Tommen would inherit, but you would really be the one with the power. Casterly Rock would be yours.”

   There is screaming silence.

   “You little slut,” Cersei shrieks, and how many times has she heard that slur?

   “Interesting. Your first response is to insult me, not deny what I’ve said. You can’t, can you?”

   As Lord Lannister looks torn between disgust and anger, as Arya looks about to burst into applause and Robb bites his lip, Sansa takes a careful look at Cersei and finds her sputtering incoherently.

   “I think that’s all,” she says sweetly and sweeps back upstairs to ask Rose to bring her some food and send Robb and Roslin up when the meal is over, before settling herself in a chair by the bed. When Jaime wakes up, she has no intention of being gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I'm the daughter of the wolf"- Eponine in Les Miserables
> 
> Comments are the best presents :)


	16. XVI Jaime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jerry- German  
> Tommy- British soldier

 

_Jaime runs over the broken ground. One more.  One more man to pull into the bushes, and he’ll be able to bring back eight of the ten he started with. He curses the battle-scarred earth with its tangles of barbed wire that makes it so easy to stumble and fall. One more. The war is supposed to be coming to an end, but these Jerrys are fighting like it’s May all over again._

_One more. He skids over the last few feet of frost touched ground, yanks his right glove off to give his left hand extra protection as he bends down to wrench twists of wire out of his way. He hopes at least one of his men is covering him because he’s practically a sitting duck._

_One more. He hears the wet_ crunch _of the bones in his hand twisting and snapping, and does not stop, slams his wire wrapped left hand up, feels something hot run down his arm, there are sharp_ cracks _, the two of them are stumbling into the relative safety of the bushes and then he feels the pain. His hand is spasming uncontrollably, stabbing and throbbing in time to his pulse; and_

   Jaime wakes up biting back screams- _if he screams they’re dead_ \- and confused. Firstly, because as always, it’s incredibly disconcerting to feel pain in a missing limb. Secondly, because not only is he clean and warm in his own bed, but Sansa is sitting not two feet away.

   “Oh good, you’re awake; I was afraid I was going to have to wake you.” It sounds like Sansa and it looks like Sansa, but he still doesn’t understand what she’s doing in his _bedroom_. “How is your hand feeling?”

   Another spasm has him biting his lip; he’s already been a shaking wreck in front of her, he’s not going to _cry_ , “Hurts,” he wheezes out. Cersei is right, he is pathetic.

   “I was afraid that would happen,” mercifully, Sansa does not say anything else about him having a nightmare. “Can I try massaging your arm like I did last time? You said it helped.”

   “But,” He wants to say it isn’t necessary, that he would never put her into a position that could possibly make anyone think less of her, but his hand keeps spasming and he can’t get the words out.

   “Oh, and don’t pay any attention to them,” Sansa continues indicating a woman and man who can only be her brother who are both sitting on the window-seat. “Roslin’s seen everything, and Robb physically can’t see.”

   She’s thought of everything even the gossips, he realizes and nods; closing his eyes and concentrates on staying quiet. He does not want to look at Sansa and see pity on her face where before there was none.

   “Relax,” he hears Sansa say as she runs her fingers over his arm. “I think those two wouldn’t notice if the ceiling fell in as long as nothing hit them.” It’s a ridicules image she paints: the two of them sitting and whispering sweet nothings to each other while chunks of plaster rain down all around them and just thinking about it has him less tense. Then there’s Sansa and her lovely, clever, magical hands. Slowly, she smooths out the knots just under his shoulder and works her way down his arm gradually until he feels loose and the pain is a dim throb.  

   “Almost done,” she murmurs and he chances opening his eyes. Curiosity killed the cat after all.

   To his utter shock there is nothing resembling pity or worse, politeness on Sansa’s face. Instead there’s the hint of concentration he sees when she tries to play a song she’s only heard a few times on the piano, with the slight furrow between her eyebrows and her eyes slightly out of focus. He’s half expecting to see her wrinkle her nose the way she does when she plays a not quite right note.

   At this point it suddenly strikes him that this is not at all a repeat of the first time Sansa had walked into his room to tend him weeks ago when his first thought had been that his father had hired a private nurse. He is exquisitely aware of Sansa beside him, touching him, of how some of her hair has worked free of its pins, how the blue of her sweater matched her eyes. He is very glad they have company, or he probably would have made a fool of himself.  As it is, he misses the first part of Sansa’s sentence.

   “Stay awake a bit, alright,” she says before standing, and Jaime swallows an entirely undignified whine. “Roslin, would you mind coming with me?”

   At the window Roslin gets up, pulling her husband behind her. In what many people would decry as a shameful lapse of decency, she keeps her hand firmly hooked in his as they cross the room and lightly shoves him into the chair Sansa just vacated before following Sansa out the door leaving the two of them alone.  

   “It’s very good to meet you, “Robb Stark says, holding out his right hand and Jaime has no idea what to do or say. Fortunately, Robb shares his sister’s intuition and with a wry smile tugging at his mouth adds, “You’ll need to let me know if my hand is in the wrong place, or if I should be holding out my left.”

   It is the man’s easy admission of his own limitations that has Jaime saying, “The left,” and extending his hand for the first time in a year with an odd swoop of nerves, and then feels an absurd sense of pride at accomplishing something so simple as a handshake. And then because he cannot leave well enough alone hurriedly rambles on: “The shaking, it hasn’t happened for a while, I don’t want you to think,” 

   “I don’t,’ Robb interrupts him. “I really don’t.”

   “But.”

   “No, you don’t need to feel obligated to explain,” Robb says almost seeming to look at him. “I doubt Sansa would have said anything because Sansa doesn’t talk, but the first time I tried eating with my family? They served mustard sauce. The smell… I panicked. I jumped up, forgot I was blind, and ran. I felt as though my skin was on fire. It was an unqualified disaster.”

   “But, you do eat with your family?” Jaime said cautiously, remembering his first meeting with Sansa.

   “Now I do. It took Roslin being ruthlessly practical. She told me that I was being unfair, that by trying not to burden her, I was doing the exact opposite and letting her flounder.”

   Jaime is starting to get a sense of what Sansa had meant when she’d said that Roslin had ‘seen everything’. “Like a coffee girl,” he says without thinking. “Not that I think your wife is a coffee-girl,” he rushes on trying to fix things, but Robb smiles.

   “Yes,” Robb says with a fond smile on his face. “Exactly like one of the serving girls in a café with a quick smile and a sharp knife in easy reach. Roslin would probably have a rolling pin handy too, come to think of it.”

   “You’re not insulted I called your wife a café girl?” Jaime asks just to be sure. Talking with Robb Stark was relaxing in how familiar it was to countless previous conversations. Two Tommys on leave talking about cafés.

   “As long as you were thinking of the nice ones,” Robb answers with a grin. “I remember some of them were very pretty. Does Roslin look like a French café girl?

   “Does Roslin?” He cannot be saying what Jaime thinks he is. Old sweethearts will sometimes marry even if one came back blinded. He knows that, knows that some women will look past injuries to their loved ones. But a stranger?

   “I’ve never seen my wife,” if it wasn’t for the fixed gaze and the way he widened his eyes as though trying to catch every possible speck of light, Jaime would have thought that Robb had seen his confusion. “She stopped by the hospital to visit her sister, I walked into her and literally swept her off her feet. It was humiliating, but she was so gracious. She laughed about the uneven floor, and thanked me for letting her know about it.”

   Jaime wonders if anyone has over told Robb Stark that he looks like a besotted sap when he talks about his wife. Probably not, so he won’t be the first.

   “I know I’m supposed to be grateful,” Robb is continuing. “I came back when a lot didn’t and with no missing limbs. I found someone willing to marry me against all odds. I’ll never want for anything, but Lannister,” for a moment Robb’s voice is so raw with longing it’s almost frightening, “I’ll never _see_ my children.”

   Just then there’s a knock and the two women are back, Sansa shaking her head with a smile over something Roslin’s said and carrying a tray. Realistically Jaime knows that not only is Sansa capable of carrying it, but that she’s carried far heavier. It doesn’t help. He never wants Sansa to have to carry anything.

  “Am we interrupting?” Roslin asks, her eyes going from him, to her husband, to Sansa, then back to him

   “Would you leave if you were?” Robb asks although it sounds more like a rhetorical question.

   “Well I would,” Roslin says, eyes dancing and Robb must know because a grin starts tugging at his mouth, “but Sansa was very insistent that Lord Jaime have whatever it is she’s brought, and I’m trying to get along with my new family.”

   It must be a private joke because all three of them smile like the cat that got the cream.

   “Here,” Sansa offers, handing him a glass and a small white tablet. “I promise it’s not addictive, it will just help you sleep tonight.”

   “Come on Robb, we’re back at the window,” Roslin sighs dramatically, indecorously taking her husband’s hand again as they cross the room. With the tidbits that Robb’s shared he can see the logic behind it. The two are skating along the edge of acceptable public behavior, but anyone who clucks over them won’t notice that Roslin is essentially guiding Robb in unfamiliar territory. A smile and a sharp knife indeed.

   “I’ll stay a bit,” Sansa says as she settles back in the chair that Robb has just vacated.

   In a bit of a daze, Jaime swallows the tablet and whatever’s in the glass which tastes strange but not too unpleasant. Sansa Stark is sitting next to his bed. This has to be a dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who's read, left kudos and especially commented these past months. I hope all of you have a great year and if it's in the single digits where you live stay warm : )


	17. XVII Sansa

 

November, 1919

 

Dearest Sansa,

   Thank you so much for your timely warning about my future sister-in-law. After getting your letter, I thought maybe I should ask someone else what they thought of Margarey’s choices for a bouquet.   Did you know that flowers have a very complex language? I certainly didn’t which was why I would have gotten married carrying some combination of “I am haughty, fickle, jealous, and unfaithful” then wondered why I was getting such strange looks. I can’t believe she would have embarrassed her brother like that! The only good part is that Aunt Ashara got here in time for the end of it and she gave Margarey one of her terribly unimpressed looks that had her scampering. Do you know if there’s a flower that means “false friendship” or something like that? Because I’ll give it to her.

   I wrote some letters and looked into schools for the blind, and from what I can tell the best is the Perkins Institute in Connecticut.  I know that’s not what you were thinking, but after your last letter I thought the two of them, especially Roslin, would appreciate a little distance from your mother. It can’t be easy for the two of them to live in your parents’ house, and it wouldn’t be a permanent move. In the best-case Robb would learn enough skills that they would be able to find their own place when they returned. If that happens I expect an invitation to their housewarming party.

   Speaking of the Perkins School, would you consider that? I know you want to make sure that your younger sister is married to someone who appreciates her- I’m taking the opportunity to complain that you didn’t say much about Tommen Baratheon. Details, Sansa, details.- but hopefully that will work out sooner rather than later. I hate to think of you stuck at Winterfell, although I’m sure it’s a delightful place, for the rest of your life especially if your mother is still somehow blaming you for your brother’s death. If it wasn’t for the fact that it’s terrible to bury a child I would have already given her a piece of my mind. Of-course it wasn’t your fault! There was nothing else you could have done, what a thing to say! Jon and Roslin were lucky, and Bran wasn’t. That’s all.

   Anyway, back to Perkins. Would you at least consider it? I know you were thinking of perhaps going for midwifery training, but what would you think of working with the blind? It isn’t all Braille, part of the curriculum is teaching them how to live as independently as they possibly can. It’s something I think you’d be very good at. You’re empathetic but at the same time you’re very practical which is a good combination. I think the staff would be very happy to train you especially if you agreed to work there for a few years. Unfortunately, it’s not only a wartime skill, people were born blind or developed blindness before the War and there’s no reason to think they won’t after. As another consideration, you’d be across the ocean. No one would particularly care about your mother’s so-called friend, (I still can’t believe that not only did he get away scot-free, my father would have had the hide of any man who did something even remotely similar to me- but that people blamed you. Your “set” can be crazy.) or that your family goes back to before the Norman Conquest. If anything, all the more shallow would care about is that you’re an actual, English noblewoman. I’m not saying that you have to marry of course, all I’m saying is that if you want to, you would have more option than the nice widower who wants someone to look after his children that you’ve convinced yourself is the best you can do.

   Speaking of weddings, Willas and I have decided to move ours up, mostly because of living arrangements. As lovely as my future mother in law is, I do not want to live in my in-laws’ house, and fortunately both Willas and his mother and father agree. Nor are we particularly keen to live with his grandmother, heaven help us. I’d rather live in a tent. Stop laughing Sansa, I’m serious. Anyway, Willas just received an offer from a firm in Cornwall. The only caveat is that it starts just after the New Year. In light of that we’ve decided to marry next month before Christmas, so we can get a bit of a honeymoon in. As you might have expected Lady Olenna threw a fit, mostly about the gossip that surrounds a hasty wedding. (How is it a hasty wedding if we’ve been corresponding for a _year_? Explain.) Lady Alerie pointed out that when we don’t present her with a great-grandchild in nine months the gossip will no doubt die a natural death. I think she’s more upset about the fact that it will by necessity be a small wedding, something Willas and I are both happy about. Leaving that he still finds long periods of immobility painful, you’d think his grandmother would think about that, no; the sad fact is that we don’t have that many people to invite. You’re invited of course, and I am terribly interested to meet your brothers and sisters.

   While we’re on the subject of wedding invitations, do you think Jaime Lannister would come. I cannot believe I did not realize that Jaime Lannister who lived with my parents for two years and was one my father’s closest correspondents is Lord Jaime Lannister whom you’re visiting. Do you know that my father was thinking about taking my mother and I to see him before everything happened? I’d always heard about Jaime Lannister-you’d think my father had another brother- but I never actually got to meet him. Sansa, do you think you can convince him to possibly attend my wedding? I realize he may not feel comfortable especially because of some of my soon to be family members’ less than delightful comments, but it would really mean a lot to me to have one of my father’s closest friends there since both my parents can’t. You’re coming -Lady Olenna and Margarey can both jump in a lake if they have a problem, it’s MY wedding- and you can put just about anyone at ease. I’ll send him an invitation of course, but I’ll need you to convince him. Point out that everyone will be too busy staring at your hair to notice his hand if you must.

   I left this for last, and honestly, I wasn’t sure if I should tell you but I think you should know-forewarned is forearmed. Margarey has just finalized her engagement to Petyr Baelish of all people. I don’t know what she sees in him beside for social and economic ambition, but I know that her being a war widow will give him respectability that he hasn’t been able to achieve yet, and she’s wealthy in her own right. Even if it wasn’t for you, I would despise him. I remember all those “clubs” and what happened to most of the girls. The man is a menace and he thrives in the sewers like a rat.

 

                                                                                                       Take care Sansa,

                                                                                                                  Allyria.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok be honest. Who saw that?


	18. XVIII Jaime

 

   When Jaime woke up it was with the nagging feeling that something was missing. Blinking, he surveyed his room, noting the empty chair beside his bed before noticing the maid at the fireplace. How early was it?

   “I’m sorry milord,” the maid had noticed him. “We’re all running late this morning what with Lord and Lady Baratheon leaving so suddenly last night, the children staying, and your hand going missing like that.”

   “It’s alright, ah,” what was her name?

   “Meg, milord,” the girl said, gathering her tools. She paused before leaving and said shyly, “Milord I don’t mean to speak out of turn, but Lady Sansa usually spends her mornings in the library before her sister, Lady Arya, comes down.”

   Jaime isn’t sure if he should scold her for presuming to know his business, or laugh at how fast word travels downstairs. He settles for dressing himself and hoping that Lady Arya took her time eating, and that Sansa will still be alone.

   It’s different walking without his hand. He no longer feels as though he has strapped weights to his right arm, but when he steps with his left foot there’s an empty space by his right hip. Still, it’s not as though he has choice in the matter. Meg had said his hand had gone missing. If it had been found he would surely have been told, and Sansa has seen him without his hand and had not run.

   Sansa as it turned out was alone in the library but Jaime wishes that her sister was there. Sansa’s face was bone white, not at all her usual milky cream and her hands that had never been anything but perfectly steady whether she was carrying a tray, playing the piano, or turning the pages of a book were shaking badly enough that he could hear the papers in her hands rustle. Sansa who blithely waltzed where angels feared to tread was afraid.

   “Sansa,” her name slips out without his permission. “What’s wrong?”

   She looks at him with her eyes wide and almost entirely black with fear and whispers, “He’s back.”

   Before he can ask who “he” is and why whoever this man is frightens Sansa so much she is continuing, her words tumbling over each other in an unplanned flood.

    “Allyria wrote to me again, I never had the opportunity to tell her that I had returned to Winterfell so she addressed the letter here, I saw it yesterday but I was too busy and I thought it wasn’t anything that couldn’t wait overnight so I only just read it now. She said that Margaery finalized her engagement to Baelish and I was so stupid, I thought I would be able to forget about him, but I should have known I’ll never be able to-”

   Baelish? The man who ran the Mockingbird clubs? In a flash of insight Jaime put together the childhood friend of Lady Stark’s in all the whispers surrounding Sansa with the disproportionate number of redheads in the Mockingbird clubs, and felt very sick.

   “Petyr Baelish is the man everyone was gossiping about in connection with you all those years ago?” he says slowly, more in confirmation than in question. He is entirely unprepared for Sansa’s reaction.

   “I didn’t know,” Sansa whispered desperately. “Lord Jaime, I promise you nothing happened no matter what people said later, but I didn’t know how to say no the right way, and I’m sorry, but I thought my parents would listen, and I didn’t mean to make more of a fuss- “

   “Sansa!” He realizes his mistake to call her by name in light of what she just said; the last thing he wants to imply is that she is less than ladylike, “Lady Sansa, surely you cannot think I believe you to be anything but blameless.”

   “Y-you do?” he doesn’t miss how her voice shakes. Damn Petyr Littlefinger Baelish. Damn her parents. Damn everyone who portrayed a naïve seventeen-year-old as the seductress. It may be for the best that he lost his hand because he doesn’t think that him being a peer of the realm and his father’s money combined could acquit him of multiple murders.

   “I’ve often been told that I’m the stupidest Lannister, Lady Sansa,” he says with a self-deprecating smile, “but even I can tell that you were the victim of a monstrous injustice.”

    To his dismay, - _why_ can’t he do anything right-Sansa frowns, “You’re not stupid Lord Jaime. Why-ever would you think that?”

        ‘You’re not stupid,’ when had anyone ever said that to him? Then Jaime shakes himself, he’s supposed to be comforting Sansa and instead she’s trying to comfort _him_ ; but her face is closer to her usual creamy milk, and her hands aren’t shaking as badly so he must have done _something_ right.

   “Shall we sit?” he replies at a loss. He can’t remember a time when either of his siblings had implied anything except that him being the heir was a trick of fate. And this is about Sansa not about him, he reminds himself as she sinks down onto the same sofa they had shared just last night.  

   “I’m sorry for ruining your morning,” Sansa says quietly.

   “You could never ruin anything, San, Lady Sansa,” he corrects himself, inwardly cringing. Why can’t he get such a simple thing right?

   “I suppose you can call me by my name,” Sansa says hesitantly. “It seems a bit silly to pretend we’ve only seen each other at our best.”

   “Jaime,” he finds himself saying almost swallowing his tongue. “Please call me Jaime.”

   That finally brings a tiny smile to her face. “Thank you, Jaime.”

   It isn’t enough, the tiny hint of a smile, how her hands are finally still. He wants to be able to touch her as she has touched him, all kindness and caring. He wants to slay her dragons. He wants to be able to hold her, missing hand and all.

   It is just then of course, that her brother and sister-in-law waltz into the library.

   “Sansa,” Roslin calls and then stops and looks between them.

   “Roslin, what happened?” Robb asks, and Jaime is jealous of the bond the two share. “What’s wrong, Sansa?”

   “I just received a letter from Allyria,” Sansa says tiredly. “She says that her future sister-in-law, Margaery, finalized her engagement with Petyr Baelish.”

   There is an immediate commotion from the door where Arya, Tommen, and Stannis had walked in unnoticed.

   Robb in the meantime just looks disgusted. “Him?”, he says in the same tone of voice of one being told to crawl though a swamp littered with dead horses. “That scum? If she’s so desperate to remarry, and from what I understand she was very much enjoying her widowhood; why in God’s name would she marry _him_?”

    “At least they’re well matched,” Stannis mutters in his most waspish tone. “Both conniving little schemers, the pair of them.”

   “Maybe she doesn’t want to marry him,” Arya put in. “Maybe-“

   “Lady Arya,” Stannis says sounding exasperated with the idiocy of the world, “let me explain something. Petyr Baelish is a terrible man and I don’t only say that because I have a young daughter. I say that because age and maturity do not necessarily keep pace with each other. If in a few years, Shireen having experienced a bit of what the world has to offer would choose to marry a man of equal age to Mr. Baelish that would be entirely acceptable.  If a vastly more experienced man would propose to her today it would be another matter entirely. Your sister,” he nods at Sansa, “was very much an innocent. My sister-in-law is very much the opposite.”

   “But- “

   “I am reasonably certain there was some blackmail behind her marriage to Renly,” Stannis says leaving no room for argument. “If any woman can handle herself in regards to someone like Baelish it’s Margaery Baratheon.”

   While all this is good to know Jaime can’t see how it’s a help to Sansa; although Stannis absolving Sansa of all blame in much the same manner he would say that the sky is blue and rainclouds are gray is helpful. It’s the first time he can remember feeling brotherly towards his brother-in-law.  

   “Uncle Stannis, I think Shireen was looking for you.” Whatever Jaime had expected, Tommen all but asking Stannis to leave the room wasn’t it.

   “Of course,” and the minute the door closes behind him Tommen looks around the room. Jaime has no idea why, but the thought crosses his mind that this was what his father had looked like when he decided to bankrupt the Reynes.

   “I don’t suppose any of you are in contact with your Uncle Brynden?” Tommen asks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Breathes a sigh of relief* We made it though the chapter :) (I'm not joking about "we" this terribly difficult to write). Please let me know what you thought :)


	19. IXX Tommen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RIC- Royal Irish Constabulary. Precursor to the Black and Tans.  
> Sinn Féin- Radical Irish Independence political/paramilitary party. Precursor to the IRA

   “Pardon?”

   Tommen looked around. Robb and Roslin Stark sat in easy reach of each other, and Tommen wondered when everyone else would catch on that they signaled each other with their fingers. Arya was gripping the arms of her chair so tightly that he was afraid they would splinter into sticks of kindling. Uncle Jaime and Sansa were both sitting on the sofa close enough that they were just on the edge of decorum; with Uncle Jaime looking as though he wanted to both hold Sansa against all the cruelty the world could offer and to hunt down anyone who had hurt her and run them through, but it was Sansa herself that solidified his decision. If Petyr Baelish had such an affect on Sansa years after the fact, then Tommen dreaded what would become of Myrcella if Baelish ever set his twisted gaze on her. For all that Lord and Lady Stark had practically disowned Sansa they had at least given her the resources that she could support herself, and before Baelish had wormed his way into their home had been known to be satisfied with their older daughter. His sweet, eager to please, desperate for love younger sister who was alternately treated as a disappointment or as a living doll would shatter should she ever be made to feel that she had erred so badly that their parents would rather her out of the family than in.

   “I know it’s a bit of a shot in the dark,” he says qualifying his earlier question, “but would any of you happen to know how to contact your great-uncle Brynden?” He really hopes so if only because it would in all probability be easier and safer to find Brynden Tully than the Blackfish as he was called among the not entirely aboveboard population.

   Sansa looked at Robb and Roslin tapped her fingers against her husband’s who asks, not unreasonably, “What do you want with him?”

   Well, at least everyone is already sitting.

  “When your sisters,” he nods at Sansa and Arya, “were called home, my mother reminded me of some of the talk that had surrounded Lady Sansa.” Arya’s hold on her chair has turned her hands white, Robb’s eyebrows snap together, Sansa closes her eyes and Uncle Jaime’s stump jerks, “and I thought I recognized the name Petyr Baelish from somewhere.”

   “I had some time on my hands,” he continues, “and Grandfather encourages my interest in business affairs, so I was able to put the pieces together rather quickly. As it happens my father invested in some of Baelish’s less questionable projects.” He can hear Grandfather saying that it isn’t really a war unless somebody profits, but really, there were limits; and that was without all the lectures on short term gains that led to long term losses.

   “Well anyway I came across some interesting information about what Baelish did with some of his money. He bought out several arms suppliers’ surplus and is in the process of re-selling them in Ireland. He selling to the Sinn Féin. And the RIC.”

   “He’s mad,” Uncle Jaime states flatly. “No-one, absolutely no-one double crosses the Sinn Féin. Ever. Certainly not to the RIC. And if anyone does they don’t double cross them also. He has a death wish.”

   “I don’t think so,” Roslin says thoughtfully. “My father sometimes had me mingle; he said men would pay attention to me and not to their cards, that it was good for business.”

   That’s, well. Tommen doesn’t know what to make of that actually. It was well known that Walder Frey wasn’t exactly an employer that a young woman would want to work for, but he had never heard that some of the women with the too low necklines were the man’s own daughters.  Neither apparently, had Robb Stark who was doing an excellent imitation of his family crest.

   “Robb, it’s fine. We were meant to be seen and not touched. My father had a deal with a man who, well, didn’t run a respectable business. My father would get the men excited and then send them over in exchange for a cut of the profits.”

   It isn’t fine, not at all. It’s wrong what her father does, to everyone but most especially to her and her sisters. It’s even worse because Walder Frey is the better option of the two choices.

   “Yes, Lady Stark,” Tommen prompts, purposely using the more formal address to show that he doesn’t particularly care who her father is, or what he does.

   “Thank you, but Lady Roslin is fine. Just because my mother-in-law and I don’t get on doesn’t mean I want her _dead_ ,” Roslin says somewhat theatrically. “What I was saying is that there were some men who thought they were invincible. Sometimes they actually were that good, sometimes they weren’t, but they were all convinced that they were smart enough or lucky enough to beat the house. It could be a bit like how some people are with liquor, how they always need the next drink. There were men who needed to play the next hand because they were going to win, no matter how clear it was that they had lost everything.”

   “He won’t stop,” Sansa says dully, and Uncle Jaime’s arm twitches again and then he actually glares causing Tommen to bite back a wholly inappropriate smile. He wonders if that how he looked when Arya had told him that she had needed to teach herself higher mathematics because her parents wouldn’t hire a tutor for her.

   “So, why do you want our uncle?” Arya asks. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just let the authorities know? Why all the subterfuge?”

   “I’m not telling the authorities. He’s successfully avoided prosecution for any number of crimes including but probably not limited to war-profiteering and unlawful prostitution. I want your uncle because I think the Sinn Féin would be very interested in knowing that one of their dealers is also a dealer for the RIC.”

   There’s a very loud quiet in the room. Tommen tells himself to focus. He clearly remembers finding a pregnant cat all those years ago and telling Myrcella he would soon give her a kitten to play with only for Joffery to cut the kittens out of the cat while she was still alive. He remembers screaming and tackling his older brother when Joffery had said he would bring the poor, dead, little kittens to their little sister, and how Mother had punished him for it. He remembers how Joffery had tormented him for years out of the grudge he held from that day, and he thinks about what someone like Petyr Baelish would do with a grudge. Most of all he remembers that most of the girls in Baelish’s clubs were fair-haired and thinks about his blond little sister.

   “What will happen to out uncle?” Robb asks.

   Tommen lets himself smile. “You do know they call your uncle “the Blackfish” because of his ability to avoid notice. Brynden Tully will be fine.”

   “I met him for a few minutes,” Sansa says. “When we went for Jon’s wedding. He thought it was a wonderful joke that he had married a radical Irishwoman.” She walks over to the desk and writes something with a pencil.

   “I’d memorize it and throw it in the fire,” she remarks as she gives it to him. “He looks very much like the photographs of my Grandfather Tully.”

   “Thank you,” that will probably be helpful.

   “You’re a good brother Tommen,” Sansa adds before relaxing onto the sofa next to Uncle Jaime who looks like a butterfly just landed on his hand, and Tommen stares. How did she know?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are always welcome :)


	20. XX Arya

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back after the worst case of writer's block and "This is terrible, I'm not a writer I'm a fraud".

   Arya spent the rest of the day very carefully avoiding everyone. If she had been in Winterfell she would have had her horse saddled, and then ridden as far and as fast as she could to bring her temper under control. If Robb still had his sight he would have taken her on a very long walk and looked the other way as she pulled her skirts up. If Jon were here he would have soundlessly passed her arrow after arrow until she was fit for company. As it was she was a guest in someone house with her mother who was ecstatic that one of her children would finally make a decent match, and her father who was quietly pleased that he and his best friend would be related through the marriage of their children, which only fanned Arya’s fury. The only person who would listen to her, even if she didn’t agree, was Sansa, and at the moment Sansa was the one who needed attention. Sansa who was terrified and defeated _even though she was the innocent party_ , who had fully expected everyone to condemn her for naivete which while often annoying wasn’t a crime.

   Arya who had been born a bit of a cynic as opposed to her idealist sister saw the inherent hypocrisy in expecting a woman to be sheltered and then blaming her for the results. It could be exhausting to follow how society worked. That was why she liked horses. They were much easier to understand.

   She would have asked Tommen if they could go riding, except at the moment he was not who she wanted to spend time with. After all the time she had spent with Tommen she hadn’t thought that he would come up with a plan for her sister without first talking to her. She had thought that Tommen was different than his father or from her father for that matter.   

 

   As she watched Lord Tyrion stare shamelessly at Sansa at dinner that night, Arya realized that with Lord and Lady Baratheon taken their leave all of Sansa’s fears were no longer relevant, and therefore there was nothing to stop her from telling Lord Tyrion off. About to _finally_ lash the little rat with the rough side of her tongue, she was pre-empted by Lord Jaime of all people who had caught his younger brother’s eyes.

   “What is it, Jaime?” Lord Tyrion asked somehow managing to sound both disdainful and irritated at the same time.

   “I was merely wondering if you needing spectacles,” Lord Jaime said somewhat flippantly. “Your eyesight seems to have deteriorated if you feel the need to stare so intently.”

   Well, well, well. Lord Jaime had some snap. Who knew?

   “Really Brother, can you blame me for feasting on such a delectable offering?”

   “I’m so sorry, I had no idea that cannibalism had become acceptable in my absence.”

   And then, of course, just when someone had put beady eyed nuisance in his place, her mother speaks.

   “Thank you for your acerbic defense Lord Jaime but it was quite unnecessary. If Sansa hasn’t said anything to the contrary,” Mother said disapprovingly, “there is no reason to think she finds it unwelcome.”

   Sansa’s face falls before she rearranges it in her smooth mask, and Arya sees red. At her mother.  At the sheer idiocy of expecting Sansa, who had been banished from her family exactly _because_ she had said that she found a man’s attention unwelcome and disquieting, to draw attention to an instance of another man burdening her with his unwelcome of advances. At her father who sits and says nothing in his daughter’s defense.

   “Just so Lady Stark,” the filthy rat says, lifting his glass in a toast to Mother.

   “I beg your pardon?” Robb says in a tone that would freeze hell.

   “I imagine your beautiful sister has had many men admiring her charms, all those soldiers...”

   No, he cannot be saying something so appalling. To reduce Sansa’s years of service, her hours of backbreaking work, her strength and courage in always doing her very best even when she knew her very best would not be nearly enough to something so cheap as flirtation was beyond insulting. It was a pity that penalties for dueling were strictly enforced because Arya was ready to slap him.

   “No.” Maybe it was that two men had both defended her without being asked, but Sansa had somehow managed to speak.

   “It wasn’t like that at all. I was given more respect by common soldiers than I have received from many so-called gentlemen.”

   It isn’t as dramatic as when Sansa walked out on Lord Lannister, but for the excruciating remainder of the meal everyone struggles with their small talk.

   Later after the compulsory offer of brandy Tommen seeks her out.

   “You’re angry,” he says, more a statement than a question, and Arya can’t help herself.

   “I thought you were different,” she says miserably. “I thought that you respected me as a person, not in spite of my being a woman.”

   “What are you talking about?” He looks genuinely perplexed.

   “You didn’t tell me about Baelish, you still aren’t telling me what exactly you plan on doing, how you’ll find my uncle, what you’ll say to him. What am I supposed to think?”

   “You think I didn’t tell you because you’re a woman,” Tommen says incredulously. “Arya, I haven’t told anyone, man or woman, any details. Well, I’m sure my grandfather knows because he’s uncanny like that, but that isn’t the point. This may not be illegal, but it’s not entirely legal either.”

   Oh. That, that makes sense.

   “Do you know how I came across my father’s dealing with Baelish?” he continues in a heated whisper. “I was trying to find a way to break the entail on Storm’s End. I won’t be able to, not entirely, the title can only go to a male heir and a son will inherit before any daughters, but if I have no sons my daughters will have the land.”

   “I want my daughters to be able to study whatever they want.” If she’s right this is the oddest marriage proposal she’s ever heard of.

   “Anything they choose,” he says like a vow.

   “I want my daughters to go to university.”

   “If they wish to.”

   “I want my daughters to never submit to a man against their will.”

   “I will teach any daughter of mine how to hit a man where it hurts.”

   “I want my children to be believed.”

   “I will always listen to my children’s concerns.”

   “I want to be a partner with my husband.”

   “You could never be anything else.”

   “Then Tommen Baratheon, I would take you as my husband.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ?????? Next chapter we're back to Jaimsa :)


	21. XXI Jaime

    It had been a bad night. Seeing Sansa quietly go to pieces had terrified him in a way he hadn’t known was possible. In a painful twist he had not dreamed of war and captivity, but of the notorious Mockingbird Club and all of its unhappy redhaired girls who were always just a little too tense, with their forced smiles and too wide eyes. All wearing Sansa’s face.  That Sansa had never set foot in one was irrelevant. Sansa's fear left him sick with helpless anger because as he knew too well there was no defense to be found against gossip and whispers. Around dawn he gave up on any chance of additional sleep, four hours wasn't that terrible, and made his way to the library.

There was something slightly eerie about the Rock in the predawn darkness, almost like a haunted house, which was why he usually stayed in his room on sleepless nights. On this morning though, he thought that he would take the chance of possibly becoming the subject of a ghost story. It was no doubt foolish, but except for yesterday morning Sansa had always been happiest in the library and maybe there he would be able to unwind.

And that was how Jaime Lannister received the fright of his life.

"Sansa," he gasped. "What are you doing here?" He wasn’t sure if he meant to ask _what_ she was doing, what _she_ was doing, what she was doing _here,_ or all of them at once. Whatever he meant to ask Sansa gave a muffled little, ‘eep’, and he realized that she had probably not expected company. He hadn’t meant to startle her, but it was his house!

  “I’m so sorry, no one’s ever come in so early except Meg, and she doesn’t mind, and,”

   “No, no, no, you…can come whenever you like,” he says instead of what? ‘You can go wherever you want wherever you want?’ ‘You can consider this house your own?’ Wishful thinking. “You enjoy the library?”

   “Yes,” she answers. “I could love this room, but I come here for the windows,” and yes the window seats along the eastern wall offers a spectacular view.

   He’s faced death on an open field. “May I join you?” he asks feeling his heart pounding in his throat.

   “Oh, of course.” She’s being polite.

   “When I was in France,” she says softly after he’s settled in beside her, “if I wasn’t too tired and we weren’t absolutely swamped I would wake up just before dawn.” The sky is now a pearly gray, and he can see her slightly dreaming face, her eyes looking inward. “It was the quiet, the stillness, a moment when all the ugliness was in the past, when the world could be made anew, when anything was possible. It was only a moment, but it was a moment I lived on.”

   “That’s beautiful,” he finally says, seeing what she sees, the awesome silence she feels.

   “You really think so?” and just as she turns to him with her eyes wide and shining with hesitant joy, the sun rises giving her an unearthly radiance and her hair, her hair is loose around her face, falling past her shoulders.

   “Your hair,” he says faintly. Tyrion had it wrong, she wasn’t Boudicca riding to battle and death; she was the lady sending her chosen knight off bearing her favor, a vison to take with him on his travels.

   Apparently, that was the wrong reaction, because Sansa’s eyes widened in dismay, and she reached into her pocket for a handful of hairpins.

   “Please don’t tell my mother,” she said with a note of desperation as she twisted her hair in the back and began pinning it up. “I’ll never hear the end of it.”

   “I wouldn’t dream of it.” He doesn’t think too highly of Lady Stark after last night, and his tone must give that away.

   “My mother wasn’t always this way.” Sansa’s voice is sad. “When my brother died, it was like a part of her died also. After the funeral she kept to her room for weeks, she wouldn’t see anyone. I think in some ways she blames me. Everyone always told me not to nurse my family, and they were absolutely right.”

   “It wasn’t your fault,”, he states a little desperately. God, the idea that she blames herself. “Sansa, you have to know it wasn’t your fault.”

   “I know,” she answers heavily. “When I saw his lips turn dark blue, I knew there was almost no chance that he would survive, that there was nothing else to be done. It’s just that I wasn’t there for my mother. I was so busy, Roslin lost so much blood, and I was afraid Jon would break a rib, and I just didn’t have enough _time_.”

   What he _wants_ is to say that because her mother is grieving does not mean that she needs to tolerate her frankly appalling behavior, but he is well aware that would make him a hypocrite of the first order. He had encouraged his father to invite Cersei and her family despite how uncomfortable she made him feel, how he never felt entirely safe around her. All in the hope that her childhood home would help her come to terms with her son’s death.

   “I’m sorry,” is what he says instead. Sorry about her brother. Sorry about her mother because for a parent to lose a child is terrible. Sorry that she had the crushing responsibility of caring for everyone.

   “It’s a terrible way to die.”

   “Some nights we would talk amongst ourselves.” He has no idea what prompts him to share this with her. “We would talk about the wounded we pulled to safety, the ones who couldn’t scream anymore. Nearly everyone wanted a single shot and for it all to be over.”

   “And you?” she asks. “What did you wish for Jaime?”

   Maybe it’s hearing her say his name, but he finds himself confessing his secret, impossible dream. “I wanted to die in the arms of a woman who loved me, a woman I love.”

   “I don’t know that I envy her,” Sansa says thoughtfully. “I think it would be terribly sad for her, although she would be privileged to inspire such love. Who is she?”

   _You._

“No one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any thoughts?


	22. XXII Sansa

 

Sansa,

   You will not believe what happened, or maybe you will. I certainly didn’t. Petyr Baelish has been found dead in the middle of some town somewhere near Ulster. (I can’t even pronounce the name so I’m not going to embarrass myself by attempting to spell it.) I was shocked that he finally came across a situation that he was unable to talk his way out of! Am I terrible person for not feeling remotely sorry he died?

   In any event, Margarey is completely beside herself in public at least. She and her grandmother put their heads together and talk in disappointed voices about how surely some information will come to light and justice will be served. If you ask me, which they haven’t, I think that the fact of Baelish’s face being untouched except for the word “traitor” being carved in Gaelic _and_ in English rather speaks for itself and as does that his death has been judged an accident by the police. The only way that was an accident was if he somehow fell down three flights of stairs and landed in a pile of broken glass that against all laws of physics only had an impact from the neck down.

   I digress. Since my future sister in law had the exceptionally poor judgment to affiance herself to such a man and now cannot decide if she should be in mourning or not (I think not. I can’t think of a single person who shed a tear.) her grandmother had the nerve to suggest postponing out wedding. Something about “giving your sister time to come to terms with the tragic loss of her future,”. Which I don’t have to tell you is most decidedly not happening! Aunt Ashara-who’s back from France and will be staying until the New Year- was about to question the Dowager if she would prefer that Willas and I live together while still unmarried, when Lady Alerie (I know she’s properly Lady Tyrell; but I cannot bring myself to call my mother in law “Lady Tyrell”, so Lady Alerie she is.) went about engaging her mother in law in a far more diplomatic fashion. She agreed that perhaps a large wedding would perhaps be unsuitable given the circumstances, and in that case, we could simply marry in a private ceremony with no accompanying celebration. As she must have known the Dowager bristled at that (what’s the point of a large house if you can’t show it off?), harrumphed and said that as we were determined a compromise could be found. As a result our wedding will be rather private with only family and close friends; which of course include you!, and a ball the next night which she is styling as a holiday rather than a wedding celebration. Lady Alerie praised her mother in law’s great wisdom and confessed that she would have been lost without her, and how she said that without laughing I will never know. Incidentally Lady Alerie all but danced a jig when she heard about Petyr Baelish’s demise.

   Getting back to wedding plans, it’s you, Robb and Roslin, Arya and Rickon, correct? I am so looking forward to meeting them properly and not just through your descriptions. As you know I always wanted siblings, but I suppose some things just aren’t meant to be.

   Thank you again for working your magic on Jaime Lannister. Having such a close friend of my father’s in attendance will make my wedding day even more special, and I know I have you to thank for it. Would you mind terribly writing to tell him of out slightly non-traditional arrangements? Please make sure to indicate that I would very much like him to attend both the ceremony and the ball. He should not in any way feel that he is being disrespectful to my parents’ memory; they were both very much ones for dancing. Speaking of which, you do dance? You wouldn’t mind dancing with him, would you? I would hate for him to feel left out.

 

                                                                                                                         Best Regards,

                                                                                                                Allyria soon-to-be Tyrell

 

 

 

~~Lord Jamie~~

~~To my~~

Dear Jaime,

   I hope this letter finds you well. Before I left you said you said that I was welcome to write, though I would find you a poor correspondent. ~~I confess myself unsure as to whether you wished me to write or not. Where you being polite, or do you wish to hear from me?~~ I realize that writing must be a difficult and time consuming process for you at this time, and I ~~don’t~~ ~~expect~~ ~~I would not ask you~~ I understand that. ~~Are reluctant to write because you think I might disparage your penmanship? I would treasure any letter of yours were you to write.~~

   I received a letter from Allyria today. As you may have heard, Petyr Baelish has been found dead in a town in Ulster. As he and Margarey Baratheon were engaged there has been a slight change in Allyria’s wedding plans. In an effort to placate Lady Olenna, she and Willas will be having a small ceremony and a celebration the next rather than the same night. As Allyria seems to be rather occupied; she and Willas are set to move to Cornwall immediately after the wedding, she asked if I could relay the nature of their altered plans and reiterate how much it would mean to her to have you attend as a close friend of her father. She asked me to remind you that both her parents were ones for dancing. ~~They sound like a charming couple, I wish you would tell me more about them.~~  If you have not had the opportunity to spend much time with Allyria yet, I give you fair warning; saying no to her is rather like saying no to a whirlwind.

   I hope that Myrcella is settling in nicely with Stannis. I imagine she is delighted to be spending time with a cousin only a few years older than herself, as well as with Lady Rhaella. My own sister has decided to make a statement and has bobbed her hair. ~~My mother screamed bloody murder at the sight.~~ She is looking forward to surprising your nephew, so I must ask you to keep this to yourself.

   ~~I miss you Jaime. I miss the feeling of talking with someone who understands me.~~ Sometimes I find myself thinking of the lovely piano in your library ~~ad wonder if~~ and ~~sitting beside you at dawn with my hair around my shoulders~~ the windows with their extraordinary views.

   I look forward to seeing you.

                                                                                                                             ~~Affectionally~~

                                                                                                                             ~~Sincerely~~

                                                                                                                            ~~With Regards~~

                                                                                                                              Sansa ~~Stark~~

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Needless to say Sansa copied the letter before she sent it :)  
> Questions, comments, thoughts?


	23. XXIII Jaime

   “Dammit!” Jaime cursed under his breath as the tip of his pen snapped, hemorrhaging black over his mortifying attempt of a letter. Learning to write lefthanded was a thousand times more difficult than his childhood lessons had ever been. He was constantly trying to remember what he did before. How he had held a pen. How he had set the paper. What he did with his left hand while writing with his right. The most discouraging part was that even when he had everything halfway under control; no broken pens, no paper sliding around, no shooting pain from where his stump pressed into the writing desk the results were pathetic at best and humiliating at worst. The letters whirled over the paper in all different sizes and with half of them written backwards. Whoever tried to decipher his attempts would need the patience of a saint.

   Just then of course he hears the off-key whistling that warns of Tyrion’s approach, and Jaime appreciates it, he does. He knows that he can be difficult and Tyrion indulges him, but now all he wants is to write a legible reply to Sansa without Tyrion’s caustic comments about how he is finally able to appreciate the value of hard work.

   “Excellent work, Jaime,” he’s right about something for once, Tyrion is in fine form. “If you weren’t the next in line I would say you have a real future as an artist.”

   It shouldn’t sting him, but it does. He never thought he was particularly gifted, but not to be able to write a letter? Any child can do that.

   “What did the specialist say?” Tyrion continues as though he hadn’t just utterly disparaged a half-hour of effort. To be fair, it’s probably just him being overly sensitive.

   “Nothing really,” he answers, shrugging. Hopefully Tyrion will drop the subject.

   “Oh, come now,” Tyrion is like a dog with a bone. “He must have said something. When are you going to be patched together?”

   “I’m not,” he mutters, closing his eyes. Stupid. He was so stupid.

   “And they say we no longer live in a time of miracles,” Tyrion says in a marveling tone. “Is there finally something that the Lannister money can’t buy?”

   Gold. It comes back to a hand of gold.

   “It was my fault. The hand I wore, it damaged what was left. I won’t be able to wear any prothesis for at least a year, maybe never.”

   “So, you’re reaping what you’ve sown. Poetic really,” Tyrion muses.

   “I didn’t think,” he starts.

   “Do you ever?” Tyrion says in a long-suffering tone. “Well I’ve always been a half-man. Being a three-quarter man would be a bonus.”

   Just like that, Jaime is flooded with remorse. He hadn’t given any thought to how his self-pity would sound to his little brother who has to live with so much worse.

   “Tyrion, I’m so sorry,” he apologizes. Stupid and selfish. No wonder Tyrion has been short with him.

   “Really, Jaime,” Tyrion scolds. “It’s not the end of the world. You have money, that’s what matters. Never think otherwise.”

   “I don’t think,” he starts before realizing how he sounds. “I mean-“Not Sansa he wants to say. Sansa had confessed to him that she had once dreamed of marrying for love.

   “You mean Sansa Stark,” Tyrion’s flippant tone shouldn’t bother him, but it does. “I grant you she seems sweet. Then again with her reputation, she can’t set her sights too high.”

   Not this again. He can feel a familiar rage building.

   “Her reputation? Really Tyrion, you’re a shrewd man. Do you really believe a naïve seventeen-year-old to be a seductress?”

   “There you go again,” Tyrion says impatiently. “No wonder so many people are dreading the day Father dies and his gullible heir takes over. The things I could tell you about seemingly innocent seventeen-year olds, starting with Tysha.”

   “Tysha?” He puts aside the knowledge that people actually dread the day he inherits. He never thought he would be as brilliant an administrator as his father, but he thought he would at least be capable. “Who is Tysha?”

   “Tysha,” Tyrion drawls, refilling his glass with whiskey, “is a kitchen maid who was in our service. It wasn’t my best moment, but I actually believed she was in love with me and wanted to marry her.”

   “A kitchen maid,” Jaime says faintly. Memories of Cersei flirting with hall boys who found themselves thrown out with no prospects of further employment flashed through his mind. Surely Tyrion wouldn’t have been so careless, so _selfish_ as to jeopardize a girl’s future.

   “One day she was here, the next she was gone. She found work in another house two counties away. When I tracked her down and asked if I meant so little to her, she informed me bluntly that love was wonderous but it wouldn’t fill her belly, put clothes on her back, or a roof over her head. Charming, no?”

   “What did you expect?” He can’t believe that he, not Tyrion, is the one who is actually thinking.

   “I don’t know,” Tyrion says sarcastically. “That when she said my looks didn’t matter she meant it? That she wasn’t toying with me when she said she loved me? That she wanted me, not my fortune? Really Jaime, use your head.”

   “But- “he starts. It could never have ended well? That this Tysha was lucky she had been able to find another job? That Tyrion should have known better?

   “But?” Tyrion asks, slamming his glass down. “You think you’re a better judge of women? You never even caught on to Cersei’s game!”

   “Her game?”

   “You poor thing,” Tyrion says. “You, poor, blind fool. Cersei’s been hinting at your ineptitude for years now. Why do you think that no woman has ever pursued a chance with you? They may have once swooned over your handsome face, but no one wanted to take the probability that you would leave them penniless. Sensible of them.”

   Stupid. Stupid, _stupid_ Jaime. It’s nothing that he hasn’t heard from Cersei before, but Cersei always resented being passed over by dint of being a woman. That Tyrion thinks the same, that he shares Cersei’s views is devastating; more so because unlike Cersei he is not being cruel, so he must be right.

   Something breaks inside of him. He had hoped that maybe, just maybe, he would somehow have a future with Sansa. That he could somehow prove himself to her, missing hand, lost looks and all, but she deserves far better than the village idiot. Crumpling his hopeless attempt at a letter-how much of an idiot is he to reverse half his letters?- and leaving Tyrion to his whiskey he goes to his room. Stupid. He was stupid to think that Sansa would ever want him, and he had only himself to blame for his misery.

   He’s greeted by the sight of Payne busily packing.

   “There’s no need for that,” he says tiredly. “I won’t be going after all.”

   “Milord?” Payne’s voice is hoarse, a consequence of the chlorine gas that shredded his throat.

   “It was a dream, Payne. Just a dream.”

   “Milord if I may, “he gulps and continues, “you’ve mentioned to me that Lady Sansa specifically asked that you come. Won’t she be hurt if you don’t?”

   “It’s better like this. I shouldn’t impose on her.” God, all he wants is to be alone.

   “With all due respect milord, I’ve spoken to the housemaids. They all say that Lady Sansa is a sensible woman who can take care of herself if the man in question is a gentleman. I don’t think she would like it that you made a decision for her.”

   He thinks of Sansa asking what he thinks of the poem she reads, looking at him with compassion but never with pity, sharing her thoughts, the rising sun in her hair and shy delight in her eyes, and makes a choice.

   “You know Payne, I think I will go after all.”

   “Very good, milord.”

    Setting himself up for heartbreak. Hoping against hope. Stupid, stupid Jaime.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise, it gets better.  
> Thoughts?


	24. XXIV Sansa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> A chara- my friend  
> A chroí - my heart  
> A chuisle mo chroí - pulse of my heart

 

   “Sansa!” Allyria jumped up. “You came, you came, you came! Where’s your family?”

   “They couldn’t come,” she says flatly, twisting her fingers around each other. Why does she have to ruin Allyria’s wedding day? “I’m sorry.”

   “Ok,” Allyria says, sitting down; and Sansa smiles in spite of herself at the sheer Americanism and the thought of Lady Oleana’s face. “What happened?”

   “Arya bobbed her hair.”

   “And?”

   “My mother screamed bloody murder. The _one_ _time_ Arya takes an interest in fashion, and of course it’s more a protest than anything else. And my father didn’t help matters one bit. He smiled and said she was so like Lyanna, that Lyanna would have loved it, that Brandon would have laughed.”

   “Brandon?”

   “My father’s older brother. The one who took a jump riding after Lyanna, fell, landed in a thorn bush, and died of blood poisoning.”

   “And your father never thought that that was why you were afraid of horses?” Allyria says with a world of scorn. “Can I give him a good shake?”

   “Allyria!” It’s disquieting to hear Allyria criticize her father. Sansa needs her father to be above reproach because if he isn’t than he sent her away with no reason other than he did not value her enough to fight for her. It has to be her fault.

   “Sorry,” Allyria doesn’t look particularly remorseful. “But what does that have to do with anything?”

   “Before my mother married my father, she was engaged to Brandon. He was my brother, Bran’s, namesake, and Bran died around this time last year. So- “Sansa spread her hands helplessly, trying to convey how her mother had broken down all over again.

   “Oooh, I see. So Arya stayed home because she felt bad?”

   “Not exactly,” Sansa hedges. “It’s more that trains aren’t exactly Roslin’s friends at the moment, and”

   “Sansa that’s wonderful!”

   “And Robb is alternating between being ecstatic, and being terrified, and feeling guilty for wanting to be whole. I can’t imagine how it feels to think that you won’t be able to hold your child.” Too late, Sansa realizes her faux pas and hurries on, “So Arya said that she’d stay home so Robb can have someone he can be nervous around, and Rickon couldn’t leave school.”

   “That’s a shame, I was looking forward to meeting him.” Either Allyria didn’t hear her or is ignoring her slip of the tongue. “So, you’re here by yourself?”

   “Yes,” it’s embarrassing but by now it will be common knowledge. “My father said that I had already traveled alone and unchaperoned through half of France, so it wouldn’t make a difference if I came alone.”

   “Sansa,” Allyria may not have been born to the upper echelons of British society; but she’s spent enough time with her fiancé’s family that she has a decent grasp on most of their idiosyncrasies, and she knows the meaning behind an unmarried woman traveling alone. “Do you mean that you don’t have anyone with you, not even a maid?”

   Shamefaced, she can only nod.

   “Well,” Allyria says briskly, “Aunt Ashara was hoping for some company. I’ll put you two together, and that should take care of the worst of it. Did you hear from Jaime Lannister?”

   “I wrote to him, but the more I think about it, I’m not so sure it was a good idea.” There was something almost fragile about Jaime as she had left him, a man unsure of himself, of his place in the world, of his own worth.

   “What do you mean?”

   “He’s very self-conscious of his missing hand, “she settles on although she’s thinking about his words, how he considers himself to be the stupidest Lannister, how he admits that so easily to her. That isn’t something he would have thought up overnight. “I don’t know that inviting to a public party was the best idea.”

   “All-right,” Allyria says easily. “You know him better than I do. When you see him today use your best judgement.”

   “But I thought you wanted him,” Sansa trails off. “You said he was your father’s friend.”

   “If my father ever found out I put my feelings over Jamie Lannister’s wellbeing, he would find a way to haunt me. I would never do something like that anyway. I would very much like to meet him, but I can do that later.” It is such an Allyria thing to do. Sparkling bubbles over a heart of gold. “Now, shoo. Let me get dressed.”

   Waiting outside the tiny chapel, she catches sight of Jaime and her heart drops. Why is it that every time she leaves, he looks worse when she sees him next?

   “Lady Sansa.” His voice is hoarse as though he hasn’t used it recently, and his eyes, his eyes are painful to look at.

   “Hello Jaime.” There is something very wrong here. “I’m so happy you were able to come.”

   “You really wanted me to come?”

   “Of course.” What the hell is going on? “Did you not get my letter?”

   “I’m sorry.” His face crumples, and she wonders franticly what it was she said. “I tried, I really tried to answer, I tried _so_ _many times_ , I-“

   “It’s alright, I wasn’t sure you would be able to respond. I was happy to write to you.” They need to move. This is far too public. “Where are you staying?”

   “But I _should_ have,” Jaime lurches on as though she hadn’t said anything. “You wrote to me, I shouldn’t have taken that for granted, the least I could have done was answer, Tyrion’s right, I take too much for granted, oh my God” he chokes out in what could be a sob, as she follows his gaze to see him staring at Allyria who finally showed up.

   Sansa would like to say that she carefully considered her choice. That she considered that her showing up completely unchaperoned to a friend’s wedding without so much as a maid had already reinforced all the rumors about her, that her being alone with a man who was not related wouldn’t be all that much worse than it was already, but she is more like her impetuous brother than she cares to admit. Her brother, Robb, who at nineteen had showed up outside her dormitory with no money, no plan, no nothing and told her that he would talk to their parents and she could come home with him; who not caring what the consequences were had told her that Winterfell would be her home as long as she wanted. The truth is she doesn’t consider any of it. Jaime is in pain, Jamie would never want to be seen like this, so they will go someplace private.

   “Jaime,” she gives his arm a slight shake, “take me to where you’re staying,” and something in her voice, the same one she’s used with blood from a severed artery filling her mouth and dyeing her clothing red as she calls for a tourniquet breaks through; and he stumbles off with her giving her best Ashara Dayne glare to anyone who so much as looks at them the wrong way.

  It’s not a far walk to the inn and he has one of the better rooms; so there’s a small sofa they can sit on, and they really can’t always end up like this.

   “Jaime what happened? What’s wrong?”

   “Allyria,” he manages, “I never saw, I didn’t realize, her eyes, she looks like,” and Sansa could kick herself. She noticed, of course she had, that Allyria and Ashara had the same striking dark blue eyes; but they don’t look at all alike besides that, and she never thought that Allyria had her eyes from her father. “and he’s dead, and Lucie’s dead, and I should have-“

  “I’m so sorry,” she offers. In the mirror, she can see what’s-his-name, Jaime’s valet and she mouths a frantic, ‘Get help’. “I didn’t know, I never saw her parents. I would have warned you if I knew.”  

   “It’s you.”

   “I’m sorry?”

  “I want to die in the arms of a woman I love,” there’s an odd sense of foreboding shivering up her spine, “and it’s you, it’s your arms, “and the skittering unease blossoms into a just barely contained panic that she ruthlessly shoves aside for later, when she can scream into her pillow with no one the wiser.

   “That’s, I didn’t think that you would, I, thank you,” she manages because a declaration like that deserves a response. Still the sense of wrong, wrong, wrong; of standing on a cliff edge is almost overpowering. “But you’re all right,” he isn’t this is the farthest she can think of from ‘all right’; “you’re not dying; look at me, look at me Jaime, you’re safe, I promise. Look at me. Jaime, please look at me.”

   “Can you pretend for me please?” he hasn’t heard a word she said. “Just for a little, just make believe for a little. I can make it fast, I know how. It will be better for everyone, it should have been me. Please do this for me, please, I don’t want to die alone,”

   Oh God. What had happened? Who thought it was a good idea that he should be by himself?

   “Jaime,” she tries again. “I’m not pretending, but please. Don’t do this. You have people who care about you, don’t do this.”

   “But they shouldn’t,” he is shaking with deep, choked-off sobs, and because it’s the only thing to do she reaches out and unfastens his collar, not that it makes a difference. “They shouldn’t,” he says franticly. “I shouldn’t be heir, I don’t deserve it, everyone knows, my brother, my sister, I’m in the way, I shouldn’t have lived, it was all a mistake, you must see that, please just let me pretend, please just for a little,”

   “Jaime, a chara,” she croons, the Gaelic that Ygritte taught her falling from her lips without her permission, and she does take him in her arms, does hold him, but not to die. “Jaime, a chroí, you’re not alone, I would never leave you alone. Jaime, a chuisle mo chroí, I’m here.”

   It seems to take hours for his sobs to die down, and it is heartrending to witness, but finally it’s over for now at least.

   “Jaime,” she asks not letting go, not letting a hint of accusation enter her voice, “when did you sleep last?”

   “I’m there,” he murmurs too tired to care, “every time I sleep. I see the fires, and I smell the blood, and feel my hand shatter, and I can’t-“

   “Yes,” she says firmly. “You can. You will sleep and if you dream I will wake you. Sleep Jaime.”

   It has to have been a long time-does no one actually care?- because he sleeps almost immediately, boneless with exhaustion, still held against her.

   Twice, he shakes as she holds him, and both times she cards her fingers through his hair, calling his name softly until he relaxes again as the morning turns to afternoon; and they are by some miracle left undisturbed until the door opens and Tywin Lannister walks in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do I need to up the rating?  
> Comments are welcome!


	25. XXV Tywin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By this right does the wolf judge the lion.

    If asked the scene that greeted Lord Tywin Lannister was not what he had been expecting, although he would have been hard pressed to say just what exactly he had thought to find. Payne’s urgent telephone call had filled him with the two emotions he despised most: fear and uncertainty. He had been foolish and weak, and allowed himself to _hope_ that with his meddlesome daughter out of his house and a lovely young woman writing to him Jaime would begin to tentatively rejoin the world.  He knew for a fact that after that discouraging visit from the specialist only the prospect of perhaps responding to one of Lady Sansa’s letters had placed a pen in his son’s hand, and that Jaime had spent hours upon hours attempting a reply in private. Still, hoping was akin to wishing and wishes were the coin of fools; which was the only explanation for him opening a door and finding his son sleeping fully dressed but with the first buttons on his shirt opened half sitting half lying across the Earl of Winterfell’s older daughter while his valet kept watch at the door.

   “Thank you, Lady Sansa-“ Before he can say anything else she puts a finger to her closed lips in an age old gesture, and fixes him in a disapproving stare, judging him, finding him wanting and it stings.

   “Lady Sansa,” he says again in a lowered tone, “I am very grateful for your care of my son.  Should you wish it, I would like to extend an offer to reimburse you for any extra expenses this has incurred.” Her maid will not be happy at the extra work. Even in the semi-darkened room he can see that her dress has been mussed. “If you would care to leave and-“

“Lord Lannister,” she says flatly and the slightly incredulous note in her voice distracts him from that she has interrupted him twice in the less than five minutes. “I see that I have left room for misunderstanding, and for that I apologize. Please allow to explain. Twice in our acquaintance I have found myself in the position of leaving your son, and twice I have returned to find to find him worse than when I left him. I would be the greatest fool in existence to leave a third time.”

   She doesn’t trust him he realizes, and although it is galling to admit, she has a point.

   “Yet, I recall you saying not too long ago, that any changes I had seen in my son were likely to be the extent of his symptoms.”

   “Lord Lannister,” her voice is innocuously soft against her harsh words, “men with shell shock,” and she doesn’t shy away from the term, “usually recover only when they are not sent back into their nightmares, when they are _allowed_ to heal. When they are not given that opportunity is when shell shock becomes deadly. We say that shell shock is debilitating, but not fatal; but that’s not quite true now, is it? Do you know how men with shell shock die, Lord Lannister?” she continues mercilessly, “more often then not they die by their own hands. Just hours ago, Jaime told me that it was a mistake for him to have lived, that his brother and sister think the same, that-“

   “What?!” he hisses. He knew about Cersei and her clumsy attempts, of course, and he thought that Jaime realized that she was just talking out of jealousy; but he had not thought that Tyrion was stupidly petty enough to join her.

   “Bitte.”

   He turns and sees that Jaime is shivering.

   “Bitte,” he mutters again. “Kalt, bitte.”

   “Give me the blanket,” Lady Sansa says hurriedly, and he watches as she gently wraps it around his son without letting him fall, how she calls him by name, how Jaime sighs, and-

   He did that when he was a boy, Tywin remembers. Jaime would pretend to be a cat and Johanna would play along. Payne may have lost his voice, but he hasn’t lost his touch with a razor; and now that Jaime is cleanshaven he looks very young. He realizes that it wasn’t gibberish, Jaime had been speaking in German and that the only request Jaime had made after he had escaped was a warm coat; and feels a fresh burst of impotent fury towards his son’s captors however dead they surely are.

   “I’ll be back shortly,” he says because Lady Sansa seems to have matters well in hand and heads down to speak with the owner.

   _You did me a bad turn Johanna_ , he thinks and not for the first time, _when you died giving me my son and left me to raise yours._

   After he appropriates the inn’s telephone and gives West strict instructions that Tyrion is to be escorted to London for the next two weeks regardless of his wishes, after he harangues the frankly incompetent railyard worker into finding him the earliest train to Lannisport, after discovering that Eddard Stark has sent his daughter off with no maid, after ensuring that there will be no records of a Sansa Stark at this inn if anyone ever comes digging for a story, he feels more like himself and returns to his son’s room and takes Payne’s place as chaperone so he can pack Lady Sansa’s disgracefully small amount of  luggage.

   Which leaves him with the lady herself. No matter her father’s actions, she is no common trollop that he can hire her services. He finds himself thinking that this would all be a good deal simpler if arranged marriages were still the customary practice.

   “I’ve made arrangements to return to the Rock, Lady Sansa,” he says quietly while Payne is off.  “I recognize your concerns and you will receive a telephone call every morning and evening to satisfy yourself as to my son’s welfare.”

   Lady Sansa opens her mouth, thinks over what she would have said, then nods.  

   “There’s a five o’clock train to Winterfell. I’ve taken the liberty of procuring a ticket for you. My son and I will return home an hour later.”

   “Lord Lannister,” she says somewhat hesitantly, “I know it’s not done, but may I stay tonight? I don’t think Jaime’s been sleeping, and I don’t want to wake him.”

   She’s right, it isn’t done and yet it’s all so obvious now. He knows very well that the maids often find Jaime dozing in the library when they light the fires in the morning, and he can’t imagine why that would be if not for that Jaime can’t sleep in his bed. He wonders when his son had last been able to sleep.

   “That may be for the best,” he acknowledges. “Payne will stay here as well and wake you in time to catch your train.” It should also quiet any gossip. A woman alone would be scandalous, but a valet’s presence will add decoroum.

   The next morning, he wakes in the pre-dawn darkness, and decides to send Payne as an escort with Lady Sansa. It wouldn’t do for her to wait for her train alone.

   Once she leaves, after almost carrying her own bag!, he shakes Jaime awake.

   “Are you here to put me away, Father,” Jaime says in the tone of one resigned to his fate, once his eyes are focused.

   “No, Jaime,” he says around an inconvenient tightening in his throat, “I’m here to take you home. Now get dressed.”

   Their train ride is silent; and he wonders how he can possibly get those two idiots married all the way to the Rock where fate or more accurately, his grandson’s penchant for dotting his I’s and crossing his T’s intervenes in the form of one Major Sergeant Bronn, formerly of His Majesty’s Army.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I find writing Tywin to be a challenge, so feedback in the form of comments are most welcome!


	26. XXVI Jaime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think a lot of you have been waiting for this, have fun!

   Jaime was silent for both the train to Lannisport and the car ride back to the Rock. Father may have said that he was taking him home and not putting him away, but that could only last for so long. Father was a practical man, someone who acted with his head not his heart, and he would come to see the reason behind Tyrion’s argument. So Jaime spends what time he has preparing to go away inside, a trick that had gotten him through three years of hell. Playing with Cersei when she was too young to be bitter. Mother and Father reading together. Mother playing piano. Holding Tommen and Myrcella when they were babies. Following Lady Rhaella around her garden while she encouraged her flowers to grow. Cinnamon in cookies. Arthur Dayne meeting him at the docks in New York when he was seventeen and alone. Lucie Dayne laughing when her husband gave her a bouquet of autumn leaves instead of flowers. Myrcella completely forgetting her mother and hugging him when he had finally come home, missing hand and all. Tommen and Arya looking at each other when they thought no one was looking. Robb and Roslin holding hands. Tipping his head back and basking in the warm sunlight like the cat he used to pretend to be. The sky brightening in the morning. _Sansa._

   He knows any chance of a future with Sansa is gone now that he has completely broken-down in her presence not once, but twice. It can never be otherwise, but he has enough memories to keep him. Sansa singing with those talented hands of hers that had taken away his pain dancing over the piano keys. Sansa giggling over Allyria’s letter. Sansa sitting next to him of her own accord. Sansa’s face lit by the rising sun. Opening his eyes to see Sansa sitting in front of him like a vision made flesh. Sansa looking at him with eyes like the sea in sunlight, or a clear sky just before daybreak.

   “Mornin’ Cap’n.”

   “Bronn?” without Jaime noticing they’ve pulled up in front of the Rock, and his former sergeant is lounging on the front steps as though he owns the place. “What are you doing here?”

   “It’s good to see you too, Cap’n,” Bronn drawls, and Jaime devoutly hopes that he isn’t about to start one of his more bawdy stories with Father standing only a few feet away. “As it happens, one Bryden Tully said he pay for my trip if it I would give you regards. Wanted me to give you this too,” he says digging out a package wrapped in brown paper and tied with a string. “It’s for that niece of his, the one with the lucky hair.”

   “Thank you,” he says wondering if he’ll be able to get a decent grip on it with his left hand, when Father stalks past and takes it himself. “I heard about Petyr Baelish.”

   “Good riddance, that,” Bronn snorts, spitting on the ground. “The only good that came out of that mess was the unofficial treaty. I haven’t ever seen the two sides so united. You should have been in the pubs that night. Everyone buyin’ everyone else drinks like they hadn’t just been tryin’ to kill each other the day before. Course they were back at it the next day,” Bronn said thoughtfully, “but it was nice while it lasted. What’s this lucky haired niece like? She must be really something.”

   “Bronn!” Jaime hisses, hoping against hope that Bronn will be somewhat respectful. “She’s not some doxy.”

   “Never said she was. Still, Jaime Lannister with a woman. I always knew you’d come around one day, that a woman’s better than your hand-“

   “Shut up!” He tries to throw a punch and only succeeds in throwing himself off-balance.

   “Easy there, Cap’n,” Bronn says, as he finds his balance again. “I was talkin’ about you, not her.”

   _Still._ “It isn’t like that,” Jaime says, because he wants to make sure he is being absolutely clear, that he is leaving no room for any misunderstanding. “San- Lady Sansa served as a nurse. I had a few,” he started to wave then realized how stupid he looked and switches to his left, “and she stayed with me. None of the nurses would leave someone, they all stay and whisper soothing nothings.” He doesn’t remember very much at the moment, he never does until later when he remembers too much. He remembers seeing someone who could only have been Allyria with those eyes and that rich hair and feeling as though someone had slammed a fist just below his ribs. He remembers sitting on a sofa and shaking so badly that he felt he couldn’t breathe. He remembers being held and feeling safe for the first time in weeks; shivering with remembered cold and then being wrapped in blissful warmth.

   “Soothing nothings, eh?”

   “Well, what would you call ah coo-shil?”

   “Ah coo-shil?” Bronn repeats, blinking. “You sure that’s what she said?”

   “Yes,” he thought it sounded pretty, like the songs Sansa loved. Although he didn’t think it warranted Bronn doubling over howling with laughter.

   “Darling,” Bronn finally whooped, wiping his eyes. “She called you darling! This girl you’ve almost convinced yourself only stayed out of her training and the kindness of her heart called you darling!”

   _Darling._ Sansa had called him darling. She had called him darling and he had left her.

   “Thank you,” he says or maybe he doesn’t. _Sansa called him darling._ Bronn is still talking and he thinks he responds. _Sansa called him darling even when he was weak and broken._

   “Jaime, come inside,” Father is saying from right in front of him. Hadn’t he already gone inside? When did Bronn leave?

   “No,” he says without thinking. “I mean, I should go give Sansa the parcel from her uncle.” _He had left Sansa and hadn’t even said good-bye._

   “Jaime, I’m aware that matters are done differently in wartime, but the war is over. You can’t walk into a lady’s house without giving any notice.” _Sansa called him darling._

   “I can if I marry her,” he says, still not really paying attention to anything, and then it’s too late to take it back.

   “And when,” Father says slowly, “was this decided?”

   “It wasn’t. I, I haven’t said anything.”

   “Then you’re definitely not going to Winterfell today,” Father says flatly, and maybe he had heard some of what Bronn said and he thought-

   “I didn’t, I never went to any of the clubs, there were no women, I wouldn’t have,” he hadn’t wanted to pay someone to pretend, he wants to say. And then later, after he had been held prisoner and run, seen flamethrowers and smelled men burning, spent a week trying to keep everyone alive with every bone in his hand broken, and had started remembering when he was asleep he had forgotten what physical desire felt like and sometimes wondered if he would ever feel anything like that again.

   “I never thought you did Jaime,” Father says sounding surprised, “but, regardless you won’t be going to Winterfell today. Tomorrow, once you’ve rested and eaten.”

   He takes in Father’s stance, the set of his jaw. Once, before he had lost his hand, before the dreams started he could have easily taken his father; but no more.

   “I guess breakfast would be nice.”

   The next morning as the train carrying him to Winterfell sways under him, he has time to think that he may have been able to plan this better. He had spent most of yesterday pacing, hoping Tyrion wouldn’t saunter in with his cutting remarks, and had finally taken himself off to the stables where he stayed until nightfall with the two horses they had left before finally deciding to just spend the night in the library where he had dozed on and off. _Sansa called him darling,_ he repeated to himself. Sansa was always sincere, she wouldn’t have pretended.

   It didn’t help much.

   When he finally found himself in front of Winterfell under a sky that threatened snow, he was surprised to be met by a boy who couldn’t have been more than seventeen at most. Neither Lord or Lady Stark was anywhere in sight nor were any of their other children.  This must be Rickon, Sansa’s youngest brother.

   “You’re Jaime Lannister,” the boy says accusingly. “Do you know that Sansa was crying yesterday because of you?”

   “I’m very sorry about that, truly.” He knew he should have come yesterday. “Is your father at home?”

   “He’s home, but he’s _busy_ ,” Rickon says, his face darkening. “Mother is feeling sad today because of Bran. Arya had a fight with Mother and I don’t know where she is now. Father is writing a letter to Jon. Robb is with Roslin because she’s afraid that she’ll lose something again. Sansa’s playing sad songs on the piano, and no one will stay with her.”

   “That stops now,” Jaime snaps. He feels sorry for Rickon who is too young to have this much responsibility. Robb at least has a valid reason to be elsewhere since he has a pretty good idea about just what the ‘flu had cost Roslin; and the more he hears about Lady Stark the more he thinks that the woman isn’t entirely well, but that doesn’t excuse anyone else.

   “Really?” Rickon brightens. “You’ll really stay with Sansa?”

   “Really,” Jaime reassures him. “But first I’m speaking with your father.”

   As he walks through Winterfell on his way to Ned’s study, he finds himself wondering which came first. Was the house decorated along the lines of the family name, or had the Starks named themselves after the house?

   “I’ll tell Sansa you’re here to see _her_ ,” Rickon says and he doesn’t think he imagines the emphasis, and wonders when Sansa had last had any visitors before knocking on the door and walking in without waiting for an invitation.

   “Lord Stark,” and it’s petty of him, but he enjoys watching the man jump.

   “Lord Jaime, I imagine you’re here because of Sansa,” Ned says wearily and it irks him that her own father thinks of Sansa as a problem.

   “I am.”

   “I appreciate it, but it isn’t necessary.” He about to be pleasantly surprised that Ned Stark is willing to trust his daughter’s judgement, but then he continues. “If this is about Sansa’s behavior, that she chose to be alone with you behind locked doors in your father’s library or that she tended to you in your bedroom, there’s no need for you to feel obligated. Sansa may make mistakes, but she understands that she cannot shrink the consequences.”

   “No,” Jaime rumbles, alive with righteous fury. “I am not hear because I feel obligated,” he almost snarls the word, “to fix your daughter’s mistakes for the simple reason that her only mistake was to believe that her own father would think the best of her!”

   “But Mr. Baelish,” Ned sputters, “she must have, she didn’t, she was so polite when she asked him to leave, she must have done something-“

   “She was seventeen,” Jaime finds himself roaring, unable to restrain himself. “She was innocent and trusting and he stole that from her, and you did nothing! You’re her father and you were supposed to protect, but you threw her out as soon as she was able to live on her own! You should have placed her value above gossip, you should have treasured her!”

   “You should know,” he says more quietly, but no less savagely before he shows himself out, “that I came here today to formally ask your permission to marry your daughter.  I am not Rheagar Targaryen to run off with a woman, but now I changed my mind. If you think so little of your daughter that you would actually believe that the only reason a man would marry her is to because he pities her, then you don’t deserve the courtesy. Petyr Baelish may have taken her innocence, but she is so much more than that. She may on longer be innocent through no fault of her own, but she has never been anything but pure.” And he slams the door behind him.

   “Sansa’s outside in the smaller courtyard,” Rickon says, and was he listening outside the door? He doesn’t seem that upset. In fact, he’s practically bouncing in place. “I thought maybe you could surprise her. Down the hall and to the left, you can’t get lost.”

   _Sansa called him darling,_ he tells himself over and over all the way before stopping short in the doorway. Sansa has always been beautiful, but now she looks otherworldly with snowflakes forming a delicate crown on her hair, and oh yes, he realizes. He can still feel desire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case it wasn't clear: Jaime has zero experience with women, and Roslin is pregnant again after miscarrying her first baby.  
> Comments are always welcome!


	27. XXVII Sansa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to all my lovely commentators, you really encouraged me to keep going through writer's block and self-doubt :)

 

It was cold with gray snow clouds heavy in the sky and Sansa welcomed it. For years cold had meant winter and winter meant that the fighting slowed, and even now Sansa finds cold air on her face to be oddly soothing. Playing piano alone was not the same as when she had played in the library of Casterly Rock with Jaime sitting beside her, listening to her talk about her missing friends. Meg, Ella, Beth, and Jenny. All four dead in a single week. Mary who left to visit her ailing father and never returned. Alice, one of the best drivers man or woman with nerves of steel, who died a fiery death when her ambulance was hit by a shell. Emma who collapsed in hysterics after one too many twenty-four shifts. Jaime who was her first social equal to not care about her past, who didn’t forgive her indiscretion, but absolved her of blame, who made her see that she was as responsible as any other woman who said “No” and was ignored even if Baelish had thankfully not gone as far as he could have.

   She wonders when she had changed, when she had stopped caring. Was it when she had first seen bodies shredded by shrapnel? When she and her friends had spent precious time freeing their patients from sun hardened mud in the summer? When she heard men screaming from mustard burns? Was it later? Was it when she saw Bran’s mouth turn a dark purple-black and realized he would probably be one of the cases who were fine in the morning and dead by nightfall? When she had told a sleeping Jon very firmly that he was not to break a rib coughing because the hospital was full? When Robb had stared at Roslin sightlessly and begged her to just wake up on her blood-soaked sheets? Earlier? When Robb had shown up unannounced outside the cramped dormitory she called home for the year she trained as a nurse telling her she could come home and never mind the consequences, and she had refused?

    Yes, in retrospect that was probably when it had started. She had appreciated the offer, but some latent sense of stubborn pride had made her stay among strangers rather than return to her parents who wanted her out of sight. She understood why, but it had still stung with the persistent pain of an invisible paper cut.

   Once she would have berated herself for letting her heart rule her head, for tending to a man in private and accepted the consequences as her due. Her father had discovered the telephone calls from the Rock and had bluntly asked her what she had done to draw Lord Lannister’s attention. She had learned many things, but she had never quite been able to look at someone full in the face and lie; and she had told him the whole story, only changing Jaime’s shell shock to a more acceptable fever. Ned Stark had not scolded her precisely but had fixed her with his most disappointed gaze as though she had failed a test of character. He had told her quite seriously that he had hoped that her mother would eventually be reconciled to her presence and that she would care for them in their old-age, but now he could not subject her mother to possible rumors about her daughter.

   Why? Why was her behavior beyond the pale? Why was her protecting a man’s privacy a sin her father could not overlook when he had knowingly shamed her mother as a young bride when he brought home a natural son and insisted she raise him as her own? Her mother who had looked so happy in the photograph with her Uncle Brandon and so solemn in her wedding portrait, who would come into Sana’s room at night and brush her hair before bed herself. Why was his subjecting her mother to rumor for his actions honorable while he judged her smaller transgression, that of providing medical care to a man while his valet stood chaperone, as a source of shame?

   “Sansa.”

   “Jaime?” she thinks she can be forgiven for being caught off guard. What is he doing here?

   “Sansa.” He looks _alive_ , and she realizes that she’s wearing the sweater that Arya had made for her all the way back in 1915. It’s too big and lumpy with knots and dropped stiches, but it was made with love and yes, self-sacrifice from a sister who hated sitting and handiwork. “You called me darling, I remember that much, I-“

“I’m sorry,” she says without thinking. She had thought that he wouldn’t have realized, that he didn’t understand Gaelic. “I shouldn’t have.”

   “I,” and he looks so sad, so hopeless all the light leaving his face that she throws caution to the wind and crosses the courtyard until she is standing an arm’s length away from him.

   “Jaime,” she says hugging herself both from the cold and so she isn’t tempted to reach out to him, “I used Gaelic so you wouldn’t understand, wouldn’t feel any obligations. There were a few nurses who would do that, who would talk a man into something they felt they couldn’t refuse. You, you shouldn’t feel that you have no choice.”

   “Sansa,” he’s alive again. “I came here in the hopes of, this wasn’t what I thought, you must be freezing.”

   “Jaime, you don’t- “to her utter horror he is taking off his coat with seemingly every intention to give it to her. Jaime cannot be cold. To Jaime cold is helplessness, a source of nightmares that haunt him years later. “Jaime,” without thinking she reaches out to stop him, and finds herself enveloped in warmth. Jaime’s greatcoat is made of excellent quality wool, she notes, trying to distract herself from the dizzying sensation of being held, of welcoming a man’s embrace. 

  “Sansa, I was hoping you would,” He initiated this, not her and very hesitantly she brings her hands up to touch his face, looking anxiously for any sign that she’s being too forward. “Come home with me” he whispers against her mouth, “Sansa, love, will you come home with me?”

   “I didn’t want to leave you,” she confesses. “All three times. I wanted to see you again, to come back to you.”

   “You will then, Sansa? You’ll come with me?”

   “Yes. Always, always yes.”

    He hasn't said anything about her touching him, hasn't frowned at her so she does what she's secretly thought of and lightly strokes her thumbs over his cheekbones, feeling her own heart flutter as though she drank Allyria's sweet, frothy, hot chocolate that took a month's sugar rations.

   "It's not fair to you," he _keeps_ talking. "You should have someone who can hold you with both hands, who can go with you to your friend's wedding and not break down. You should-"

   " I should decide who I want and who I don't want," she replies somewhat tartly. "There should be some advantages to being thought of as the family spinster."

   "Oh, good." Jaime actually laughs although it sounds as though he has forgotten how. "If you were only being polite you wouldn't have been angry.  I would have wondered for the rest of my life if you really meant to say yes. I may never be the same, Sansa," he continues more seriously, "if I was a better man, less selfish, I'd let you go."

   "Don't. Don't let me go, Jaime. " She's babbling, she realizes as Jaime takes her words literally and shifts so he holds her in his right arm, so he can trace her face with his hand.

   "Three weeks, then" he says seriously. "Three weeks to read the banns. Then I'll take you home, love."

   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well? Did it measure up? Comments are welcome!


	28. XXVII Rickon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait, I hope you enjoy.

  “Arya! Arya!” As usual, Arya had finally come sneaking in through the side door with just enough time to dress for dinner. “You’ll never guess who’s here!”

   “Whoever it is, it had better not be Robert Baratheon and his charming wife,” Arya grouses, “because I’m hungry, and if it’s them I’m going to be to ill to join everyone for dinner.”

   “Jaime Lannister! He asked Sansa to marry him!”

   “Today?” Arya looks annoyed. “Couldn’t he have waited another week?”

    “Why? What happens in a week?” This wasn’t going at all the way Rickon had expected. He had been waiting for hours to tell someone his news. There was only so long he could watch Sansa and Jaime look adoringly into each other’s eyes.

   “I would have won the bet.”

   “ _Bet_ ,” Rickon practically squeaks in indignation, “you were betting on Sansa?”

   “Not on Sansa,” Arya says a little too quickly. “Tommen said that if the two of them went to Allyria Dayne’s wedding without any family they would be in engaged before the week was out, and I disagreed.”

   “So you placed a wager on when they would be engaged? How much do you owe Tommen?” Rickon can’t help but ask, still disapproving of the idea.

   “I don’t owe him anything,” Arya sulks. “I just need to tell him that he was right.”

   Before Rickon can ask anything else, like why no one ever tells him anything or what she and Mother were arguing about that had her returning with hair looking like an untidy bird’s nest complete with twigs and leaves, or even if anyone else was placing bets, the dressinggong rang and the two of the them scampered to dress for dinner; with Arya muttering how it wasn’t fair that Tommen knew his uncle so well the entire time. 

   When everyone, including Mother and a still pale and red-eyed Roslin are in the drawing room after dinner, Rickon finally manages to corner Arya.

   “A week,” she mutters to him while treating Jaime to her most terrifiying glare. “Would it have been all that difficult to wait one more week? What do you want Rickon?” What does he want?

   “How long have the two of them known each other?” he starts with. “Why didn’t Sansa know he was coming? Is anyone else in on the betting? Does he always look so tired? _Does his father know he’s here?_ ”

   “Oh, Lord Lannister definitely knows his son is here,” Arya answers wryly. “The only thing that I’ve ever seen escape that man is what a harridan his daughter is.  You should have seen Sansa,” she continues gleefully, “she grabbed Lady Baratheon and _threw her out of her father’s library_.”

   “Sansa?” Rickon blinks. “Our Sansa?” His gentle sister had put her hands on someone and had thrown her from a room? “Why did she do that?”

   “Rickon, you cannot tell anyone,” Arya starts seriously, “well Sansa knows and Robb probably guessed, but Rickon, promise me that you will never tell anyone.”

   “I promise.”

   “The first time I saw Jaime he looked just as tired as he does now; he was jumping at every noise. You’ve heard of shell shock? How some men never really came back from the Front? Well, that was Jaime Lannister, still living in the trenches a year later until Sansa coaxed him out. Then we were gone for two weeks, and when I saw him again he looked like a ghost. His _sister_ ” Arya practically snarled, “she pushed him back. She shouted at him, she must have thrown something because there was broken glass on the floor, and that’s when Sansa walked in.”

   “And Lord Lannister didn’t say anything,” Rickon asks, agog. “Mother would skin anyone who did that to Robb alive.”

   “Sansa didn’t give him chance,” Arya grins. “She came sweeping into that dining room like an empress and Lord and Lady Baratheon left that night.”

   “He shouted at Father for her,” Rickon offers still trying to picture it all. “Then he slammed the door on him.”

   “Did he now?” Arya hums. “It’s about time someone did.”

    About to protest that he tried to keep Sansa company when he was home from school, Rickon saw Roslin poke Robb in the ribs.

    “Sansa, I heard Jaime brought you something,” Robb called across the room in Sansa’s general direction at least, even if he was actually addressing the wall, “anything interesting?”

   “It was from Uncle Brynden actually,” Sansa says looking a bit startled, but then that’s what happens when you’re busy gazing into someone’s eyes and smiling shyly. “One of Ygritte’s relatives sent lace as a thank-you.”

   “That’s lovely gift Sansa, and perfect timing” Roslin says, and Arya looks like she wants to roll her eyes for some reason. “Will you use it for your wedding dress?” Oh, no wonder. “When are you two planning on marrying anyway?”

   “We thought three weeks, Lady Roslin,” Jaime. It’s a little odd to hear the same man who slammed the door to Father’s study and stood in the snow together with Sansa wrapped in the same coat speak with such decorum, but Mother has always been a stickler for proper behavior. “Neither of us really wants a big wedding, we don’t have too many people to invite.”

   “Three weeks?” Father says sharply. “You won’t wait for Arya to marry first?” and Sansa’s face falls, but Mother, Mother! answers before anyone else.

   “No Ned. Sansa’s older, she shouldn’t have to wait.” It’s the most Rickon has heard Mother say of her own accord in the past two weeks, and he’s spends the next half hour stunned into silence.

   “Rickon.” Robb’s saying his name as though he’s repeated it quite a few times.

   “Hmm?”

   “Rickon, this is important,” Robb says blinking rapidly and Rickon moves so he’s in better lighting. “Jaime is leaving early tomorrow morning. I’m not sure I’ll be able to be there, so why don’t you introduce Shaggydog?” and Rickon grins.

   The next morning, he makes his way to the front steps and smiles when he sees that Jaime is alone.

   “Thank you for coming, “ he says politely trying to remember his manners, “could I introduce you to someone before you go?” At Jaime’s nod he whistles Shaggy’s call and sees Jaime’s jaw drop when the huge Newfoundland comes padding out. “Shaggy why don’t you jump up and say hello?” Shaggy being the good dog he is stands up on his hind legs with his paws on Jaime’s shoulders, and Rickon sees Jaime gulp. “Sansa is one of Shaggy’s favorite people.”

   “Shaggy!” Sansa calls and Rickon couldn’t have timed this better if he tried. “What are you doing? Come here,” and Rickon watches smugly as Shaggy immediately heads over to Sansa friendly as a puppy before ambling inside.

   Then Jaime turns to say goodbye to Sansa.

   “Three weeks,” he says tracing her face. “Three weeks and you’ll come home with me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So???


	29. XXIX Rhaella

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the nerds: Rhaella's comment on clothing styles is in reference to women's drawers being crotch-less until the 20th century. Just in case anyone writes a Victorian/Civil War smut fic ;)

  “Stannis,” Rhaella gives him a tap with her fan, “remember what the doctor said. Grinding your teeth will give you terrible headaches.”

   “There’s a party. In my house. “

   “It’s your daughter, your niece and a few friends.” Myrcella has lost some of her nervous shyness once away from her mother’s overbearing presence, even permitting herself to order a dress in a color that suits her tastes, “ Let’s not exaggerate. Besides,” she adds before moving off, “just think; your nephew and his fiancée aren’t even here.” Tommen has gone to visit Arya at her family’s home and she wishes Eddard Stark joy of the pair of them. It was years and years ago, but Rhaella has never entirely forgiven Eddard Stark. Eddard Stark who had been so quick to believe the ridiculous rumors that swirled around a seventeen-year-old Jaime and herself. The idea that the two of them were in the midst of some torrid affair would have been laughable if it hadn’t been so devastating.  Neither has she forgotten how he had endorsed Robert Baratheon in naming her son a rapist. She loves all her children, the ones who had never been born, the two who had, and she knew them well. Rhaegar had been an absent father, a distant son, an unfaithful husband, but not a rapist. Never that.

   “Lady Rhaella.” Only Tywin Lannister can offer a greeting like that, brusque but still polite. “I trust you’re doing well.”

   “Yes, thank you.  I’ve enjoyed having Jaime to visit.”

   “He’ll be married this time next week,” Tywin muses. “It’s all rather sudden.”

   _He’s Joanna’s_ she wants to say. _He’s all Joanna’s who declared she was going to marry you after one night. You were the one who took your time deciding._

   “He adores her,” is what she says instead, “and she loves him.” _And she tells him that every time she puts her hand on his right arm._

“He was an agreeable guest, I trust?”

   “Of course.” _I doubt he slept more than an hour the first night he was here with all the pacing._

“Hmmph.”

   _Tell him you worry about him. Tell him you love him._ Where is Joanna when she needs her? She could smack the man.

      “Granny! Granny!” Shireen seems have forgotten that she was now a medical student and was running like a little girl and tugging at her hand. “Granny, you have to come, you have to see this! Oh, and you too, Lord Lannister,” she calls over her shoulder. “It was Myrcella’s idea. I don’t know how she talked him into this, but look!” Rhaella can only stare.

   “My God.” Jaime is dancing with Sansa. Her Jaime whom she was afraid would never really come back is smiling. He looks _happy_. He and Sansa have worked around his missing hand, and if their positions aren’t exactly correct the way they look at each other is enough to make anyone forget it. “He’s dancing.”

   She reminds herself of that little scene later in the week while she watches Jaime try very hard not to look behind him. There are no men, or at least none who are unspoken for. Even for a small wedding such as this one the groom would usually have a friend stand up with him, but Jaime has no one. Of the ten men in the room five are parents or old enough to have grown children, one held a position that allowed for an exemption of active service, one was unfit to serve, one was only just seventeen, one was blinded and two were crippled. All three are haunted men; their wives’ eyes shadowed with loss. And these are the lucky ones.

   Before her thoughts can travel too far down that dark road Myrcella taps her hand lightly and arches her brows in a silent question. While at first, she had been pleased to have Myrcella to stay for company for Shireen the girl has become another honorary granddaughter to her, not the least because Myrcella reminds her of her own lost granddaughter. How Cersei Baratheon had produced a daughter who was best described as sweet and thoughtful was a mystery for the ages. In her most vivid imaginings Rhaella could never picture Cersei thinking to give her brother charcoals so he could write more easily yet Myrcella had presented hers to her uncle and shyly told him that she found charcoals to be more comfortable then ink, drawing a rare smile from Jaime.

   “Look,” Myrcella mouths tilting her head at Sansa who has just walked in.  She’s breathtakingly beautiful in white and lace holding a spray of myrtle, and the way Jaime looks at her…it’s enough to make the romantic in her dance, and they are both so very sweet and lovely with each other that she almost cries. Even Tywin’s barely veiled disapproval when the two kiss with slightly more passion than called for doesn’t dampen her mood. So the two have stolen a few kisses, hardly the end of the world. Besides, while she very much likes the new styles there’s no question that they are more difficult to get into mischief with than the ones when she was a girl.

       “A beautiful wedding,” she tells Tywin later, after Allyria Tyrell has smartly reprimanded Tyrion for ogling his brother’s bride, _‘My grandmother always said Church of England were heretics, but I never thought they would covet their brother’s wife,’_ and Willas accidently-on purpose tripped into Cersei just before she reached her brother, _‘He’s_ wonderful _isn’t he, Lady Rhaella?’_. “You must be quite satisfied.”

  “You know, I always thought no woman would ever be good enough for my son. Then I thought he would never marry. It’s the first time I’ve been pleased to have been wrong.”  

   Heaven grant her patience. This is the way Tywin says _I love you, I’m proud of the choice you made for a wife._ It’s no wonder Jaime spends his time looking over his shoulder. It’s all very well for Tywin to love his son except he seems to have forgotten to let Jaime know it.

   “I suppose some surprises are to be celebrated.”

   _You’d be thrilled with your new daughter, Joanna. You’d love her, your son’s Lady Love._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any comments? Next chapter those two actually get it on :) And it only took thirty chapters LOL


	30. XXX Jaime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so I've had the summer from hell,and am just now somewhat getting back to myself. Hopefully I'll work up to more regular updates until I'm back to my previous almost weekly schedule.

Jaime wishes, desperately, for a cigarette as he hasn’t in over a year. Just this once he’ll take the memories the sharp bite into his throat induce in exchange for clear headed calm. Or, he would pay the price, but he can’t. He hasn’t had a smoke since he woke up with a missing hand that somehow still managed to throb in dull flashes in tandem with a missing pulse. And now he’s married with no practical experience between the two of them, and absolutely no idea how to take off a woman’s dress. He’s seen the tiny buttons held with little loops of fabric, and his usual method of fumbling with an off hand and his teeth doesn’t seem like the way to go, and he can’t imagine that anyone can contort themselves enough to unbutton their own back, and-oh. Sansa must have asked her maid to help her because she’s not dressed dressed, she’s in something white and soft and loose, and he swallows against a suddenly dry throat. She’s beautiful. And she’s his.

   “I don’t know what to do.” That startles a laugh out of him.

   “Well, neither do I. We’re a perfect match.” But she’s enjoyed their stolen kisses, and so he starts with that, rubbing their noses together, feeling her hands stroke along his face before pulling at the blessedly loose knot that ties her robe closed.

      Her skin is warm and smooth as silk, and he’s even more self-conscious of his missing hand, of the scars that litter his body.

   “Umm.” The noise he makes is entirely involuntary, a response to her little mewls. She wants him, opening her mouth for his kisses, running her hands over him, and he’s not jealous of her as much as he wants to do the same. Still… she doesn’t seem to mind too much if her pressing herself against him is any indication and without any conscious thought it seems they’re sitting on the bed and he’s nibbling along her collarbone while she makes the most delicious gasps, and they do know what to do even if he’s worried about hurting her because it’s her first time and a first time always hurts a woman, but she keeps pressing against him, so maybe it doesn’t hurt too badly-

   “Slower,” Sansa asks nervously biting her lip, “can you move a little slower?”

    Somehow he forces himself to stay absolutely still, balanced on one hand, still buried inside her until she rocks up to meet him with a quiet ‘yes’ and he can’t stop himself from groaning somewhere deep in his throat. Sansa feels like home and comfort and luxury, like wrapping himself in blankets, like sinking into a hot bath.  She’s perfect, she’s beautiful, he loves her, he loves her…

    He can do this, he thinks languidly afterwards. He thinks that up until Arya's wedding. 

   Red. Cersei’s decorated with red flowers, and she’s invited Robert’s friends in their red dress uniforms; and it’s all he can do to not turn and run. She’s smarter than he is, and he was a fool for ever thinking he could get away.

   “Jaime, Jaime breathe.”

   “Sansa.” He gulps in a shaky breath, right arm twitching, “Sansa, I” He’s not ready for this, not ready to face the gauntlet of pitying eyes.

   “I’ll ruin her.” He hadn’t thought Sansa capable of such steely fury and the surprise is enough to pull his mind away from army red. “If it wasn’t Arya’s wedding, I’d throw a fit. On second thought, maybe I should. Arya would love it.”

   She would, his spitfire sister in law. She’d laugh in delight at the idea of everyone remembering her wedding for a vicious family fight, and Tommen would look on with that not-quite-smile of his. It’s enough to tug his mouth into a slight grin, to work long disused muscles.

   Then he hears them, bits and snatches of too loud whispers, and they steal the smile from his face.

   “Pretend you can’t hear them,” Sansa whispers out of the side of her mouth, polite smile firmly in place and moving unobtrusively his left so he can take her hand if he wishes. “God knows I did.”

   It doesn’t help. He hates pretending, hates people whispering behind his back, and he focuses on Sansa next to him. If she can ignore the whispers so can he.

   It’s because he’s so intent on Sansa that he can pinpoint the exact m oment she tenses, a barely perceptible hitch in her stride, a widening of her eyes.

   “Lady Sansa,” the old doctor says and something about his tone rubs him the wrong way.

   “My wife is Lady Lannister, Dr. Pycelle.”

   “And so she is.”

   “I’m sorry.” Sansa is staring at the floor and flushed along her cheekbones. “I didn’t realize he’d be here.”

   “You’ve met?”

   “Cersei insisted he examine me after Mr. Baelish. He, he touched me all over, to check…”

   And just like that all the nagging voices that tell him it was a mistake to tie her to him are back, and they eat at him for the rest of the day like a moth into wool. She’s his wife. And he can’t stop Cersei from going out of her way to haunt them.

 

 

   _It’s so cold. He’s shivering against a broken wall, curled into himself for miserly scraps of warmth. There are four others with him. There were five yesterday. There were six three days ago. There were ten last week. From the awful wet coughs there’ll be three tomorrow._

“Jaime.”

 _And then it’s Pod who’s coughing, but he can’t be here, he won’t be eighteen for at least a year, he can’t, he_ can’t _be here, and Arthur is staring into the lamps with fixed eyes when he should be dead and buried, and the guards are laughing and pulling at Myrcella’s clothes, and she’s not here, she’s safe at home, but he can hear her screaming and he tries to get up, to help, to scream to leave her alone bitte, bitte,  but he’s so cold and clumsy, and he can only croak a whisper._

“Jaime. Jaime, breathe.”

 _And Sansa’s wide eyed in terror as Dr. Pycelle runs his hands over her and holds her down, and no, no, no, not Sansa, not Sansa, please not Sansa, and his hand snaps with a wet_ crunch _and Cersei looms over him, grinding his hand down with her foot, and he can’t_ think _through the fire running up into his arm, and please, please, I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please, not Sansa, not Sansa, no, no, nononononooo_

“Jaime, open your eyes. Open your eyes and look at me.”

   He’s, he’s in bed with Sansa who’s his wife and oh no. She knows now, she knows just how broken he is, that he’s incapable of pulling himself together for her, and she’ll leave and he can’t, he can’t-

   “D-don’t leave me,” he’s horrified to hear the desperation in his voice. “Stay, stay, I-“ he breaks off, panic driving the breath from his lungs.

   “Jaime,” she doesn’t leave, only holds him tighter, “Jaime, breathe. I love you Jaime, breathe for me.”

   He loves the way Sansa says his name, how she turns something so ordinary into an endearment. He loves her hands with their deft fingers which are currently tracing circles on his chest and shoulder, and he gives himself over to her hands and voice, lets himself sink into her softness where he can wait to come back to himself.

   When it’s finally over and he’s more slumped onto Sansa than anything else, too drained to move or sit on his own he notices. Sansa’s crying.

  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for sticking with me. I don't usually do this, but any comment you can leave really helps :)  
> Check out the new Pinterest board @ https://www.pinterest.com/storiesandprettythings/hold-on-love-were-still-fighting/  
> and feel free to look around while you're there!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Of Broken Cups](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14218158) by [Selkiessong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selkiessong/pseuds/Selkiessong)




End file.
